Category Archives: Culture

G’ma loves Cassius Clay

But here was Clay on our TV, blustering, making horrible threatening faces, shaking his fists at the camera, calling Liston a “big ugly bear” and predicting his demise at his own hands in unparalleled bombast. AP Photo/John Rooney

But here was Clay on our TV, blustering, making horrible threatening faces, shaking his fists at the camera, calling Liston a “big ugly bear” and predicting his demise at his own hands in unparalleled bombast. AP Photo/John Rooney

by Dell Franklin

It was January of 1964, shortly before I was inducted into the U.S. Army as a 20-year-old, and then-Cassius Clay and soon-to-be Muhammad Ali was going to fight terrifying heavyweight champion Sonny Liston, an ex-con whose scowl in the ring was so menacing several opponents melted before the first punch and folded like accordions.

But here was Clay on our TV, blustering, making horrible threatening faces, shaking his fists at the camera, calling Liston a “big ugly bear” and predicting his demise at his own hands in unparalleled bombast.

Dad, an ex-amateur champion boxer out of Chicago who could have turned pro but instead chose baseball and reached the Big Leagues, said, very sourly, “He hasn’t fought anybody, except Archie Moore, and he’s fifty years old for Chrissake! Moore would’ve made a fool out of him ten years ago. This guy’s all talk, a showboat blowing his own horn, Liston’ll knock him out and shut his mouth.”

Mother, an Eleanor Roosevelt Democrat, said to me, very quietly, but matter-of-factly, “A black man has to blow his own horn in our society, or he’ll never be heard.”

We all watched film of Clay training. He danced and glided around the ring, occasionally going into a frenetic shuffle and throwing punches so rapidly he reminded you of a lightweight, and it was hard to believe anybody could lay a hand on him, much less beat him. He was undefeated and had embarrassed every opponent, and only Doug Jones, who lost in a decision, had come close to beating him. As we continued to watch Clay spout and threaten and predict, making those faces, Gramma, about 4-feet-10, Russian born, who raised seven kids (including my mother) without much help during the Depression piped up, “Oh, that man, look at his eyes, they’re so kind and gentle. He’s a beautiful young man, he’s just putting on an act.”

That was it for me. Gramma had the wisdom, the X-ray insight. Mother nodded. I was all in on Mr. Clay.

***

A month later, I was in my third week of basic training at Ft. Ord, California, and our company DI announced, to our disappointment, and his sadistic gratification, that we were to clean our barracks and no radios were allowed for us to catch the Clay/Liston fight. Luckily, our platoon DI, a three-striper named Jeffries, a towering scary black man, informed us if anybody found a transistor radio, we could listen to the fight, because he wasn’t going to be around, he would be watching it on closed circuit and didn’t give a goddamn what we were doing as long as the barracks was tip-top in the morning.

So, around 40 of us surrounded a small transistor radio. Almost everybody favored Liston. My dad, with whom I’d gone to fights and watched the Gillette and Pabst Blue Ribbon bouts on TV and listened to his predictions of when and with what punch would end most of these fights, and was almost always right, picked Liston.

I picked Clay as bets were made.

We were glued to the radio, yelling, whooping, and when the fight was called and Clay won, all those who picked Liston yelled “Fix!” The few blacks who had picked Clay were shuffling, throwing punches, gloating, boasting just like Clay. I called dad a couple nights later and the first thing he said was “Fix. Goddamn fix.”

Yeah, sure. Later, when I saw the film during my 15-day leave, and Cassius Clay was now Muhammad Ali, I told dad, “Look at the size of Ali, dad. He’s BIGGER than Liston. Nobody’s gonna beat him. Let’s face it—he is the greatest!”

Dad didn’t want to hear it. “Bullshit,” he muttered. “Joe Louis takes him out in five.”

***

September of 1966 I had about three months left in the Army, was stationed in Northern Italy, and my first sergeant, a black man who’d been in the Army since 1940, Pastell Gardner, wanted to borrow my car to drive to Frankfurt, Germany, to watch his man, Muhammad Ali, dismantle the German contender, Karl Mildenberger.

At the time, I was a Spec 4, a medic, and owned a VW Beetle I’d managed to buy with black market dealings with Italians, for no GI could afford to buy a car clearing $118 a month. Our company was primarily black, but for some reason Sergeant Gardner, the slickest person I’ve ever known, a bulky Sugar Ray Robinson look-alike with a walk and an attitude right out of a New York Jazz joint (he was originally from South Carolina) took a liking to me, and I have to say I admired him as one of those special characters who come along and show you how life should be lived to the fullest—and with uncommon style.

I asked couldn’t he just take a train? But no, the sergeant wanted some independence, promised to be good to my heap, and so I said yes, and he took off toting his finest silk suit and wide-brimmed hat, and when most of the post gathered in the EM club to watch the fight on TV, if you looked closely, there was Gardner, ringside, a blonde German woman beside him (he was thrice divorced) as he puffed on the biggest cigar he could find.

As most of the white GIs rooted for Mildenberger, representative of a country we’d defeated in a war just 20 years earlier, every black rooted for Ali, who sliced Mildenberger up like beefsteak, and once again every black GI in the room slapped hands, danced and shuffled and threw punches to the wind, while white guys shuffled off in defeat.

No fix here. When Gardner returned, my car in tact with a full tank of gas, he couldn’t stop smiling. “Greatest time of my life,” he said, as I visited him at his desk in the orderly room, a framed, autographed photo of Ali on the wall near the one of President Johnson. “Ali, my God, you got to see the man up close to believe it. Ain’t nobody like him, never has been, never will be. Man is magic.”

He handed me one of his cigars. How he got them from Cuba I’ll never know.

***

One of my customers, who knew I was a fanatical fight fan and liked Ali and supported him all during his exile from the boxing world, gave me a poster by Leroy Neiman of the coming fight.

One of my customers, who knew I was a fanatical fight fan and liked Ali and supported him all during his exile from the boxing world, gave me a poster by Leroy Neiman of the coming fight.

Before the Frazier/Ali match in March of 1971, as I tended bar in a hotspot in Manhattan Beach, California, one of my customers, who knew I was a fanatical fight fan and liked Ali and supported him all during his exile from the boxing world, gave me a poster by Leroy Neiman of the coming fight, and then framed it for me—brown and tan wash depicting sleek Ali, rough charcoal portraying gnarly Frazier, so different from Neiman’s other colorfully gaudy fight posters. I quickly hung it up in my studio apartment—my only (to me) museum piece. Forty-five years later, it’s still the centerpiece among my collected art.

I awaited the fight with dread, having watched Ali against Quarry and realizing he was not the same, he was heavier, slower; rusty from a 3 ½-year layoff. At this point, dad sort of admired Ali, but still insisted Liston took a dive, and I told him I thought Liston probably quit both fights because Ali had him psyched out and terrified of looking embarrassed in the ring in front of millions of boxing fans who once admired him.

Dad picked Frazier over Ali. I insisted Ali would have easily beaten Frazier had he fought him in his prime. As it was, in defeat, Ali stood up from a devastating left hook in the 14th round that would have retired most boxers, showed his courage as he fought gamely on, and humility in this first defeat, and came back to beat Frazier and all the contenders while being half the fighter he had been before they took his championship away. He was also easy to hit, bigger, slower, with only sporadic dancing and electric footwork, but he still had that jab and those hands—and the will of two teams of oxen.

Much later, when he became a human punching bag for Larry Holmes, I refused to watch. Every fighter comes to this point in his career, but Ali? Yeh, Ali. He was mortal, and damaged beyond recovery, and as time passed and he lapsed into the most severe symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, became largely mute and unrecognizable in his puffiness, there was still that twinkle in his eyes, like he was still putting you on, what my gramma described as “kind and gentle, a beautiful young man.” §

Dell Franklin writes from his home in Cayucos, Calif., and publishes his observations on sports, politics, and culture on his website, dellfranklin.com, where this article first appeared.

Pacific Coast League Reunion

Oldest living New York Yankee recalls early Southland pro baseball

by Dell Franklin

CULTURE.REUNION.NOREN CARD

Irv Noren threw and hit gracefully left-handed, led the league in just about every offensive category, and went up to the big leagues in 1950 and had an accomplished career until 1960, including three World Series victories with the Yankees.

While attending the Pacific Coast League reunion down at the Huntington Beach Library, and browsing through old photos and scrapbooks guarded by fanatics who followed and felt the PCL of the 1930s, ‘40s, and ‘50s was indeed the golden age of baseball, somebody told me Irv Noren was in the house.

I had been talking to aged diehard PCL fans and pointing out pictures of my dad engaged in the biggest, bloodiest brawl in the history of baseball between the Hollywood Stars and LA Angels in 1953, and when I spotted Irv across the room I instantly became a dog frantically wagging his tail and made a beeline toward him.

Irv was on a cane and as he conversed with several old geezers (that’s all there was at this gathering) I waited patiently beside him until he turned to me and I said, “My father, Murray Franklin, played with you on that 1949 championship team.” Then I showed him the ring awarded those champions that I had inherited from my father, and he shook my hand.

“Remember Murray very well,” he said. “Great guy.” And it was apparent right off that Irv, though in his nineties, was spry, mentally acute, and still inspired. I told him that in all the years my dad played pro ball (from 1937 until 1953) the Hollywood Star team of that era was his favorite. Of course, on that 1949 team, Irv could have been the inspiration for Robert Redford in “The Natural.” He threw and hit gracefully left-handed, led the league in just about every offensive category, and went up to the big leagues in 1950 and had an accomplished career until 1960, including three World Series victories with the Yankees, who got him in a trade with the Washington Senators after he had two solid years.

As soon as we were alone, I said, “You must be 92.”

“I’m 91. Going on 92.”

“You hit .319 in 1954. I had your card.”

“That was a pretty good year,” he conceded.

He said he roomed with the great hall of fame pitcher Whitey Ford from 1952 until 1956. They were still tight. He said Yogi Berra never got credit for being a great athlete, because of his squatty build. “I don’t think Yogi had three passed balls a year. He was as good as they come behind the plate.” A few enthusiasts began hanging around, for, with most of the old PCL players now deceased, Irv, along with Paul Petit and Dick Adams, were the only celebrities left. Before I moved on so others could pose for pictures with Irv, an admirer asked, “What about today’s players, Irv?”

“Bigger, faster and dumber,” he said, a twinkle in his eye. “I think Jerry Coleman told me that.” Coleman was his team mate with the Yankees and later a San Diego Padre broadcaster.

Another man who was part of the crew running the reunion came up with baseball card-sized black-and-white photos of Irv standing beside a famous singer as part of the local lore of the entertainment and film culture that surrounded the Hollywood Stars. Bob Hope, Milton Berle, Kim Novak and Anne Bancroft, among others, regularly attended their games. I instantly recognized the photo as one I kept among my dad’s archives.

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The author’s father, Murray Franklin, played with Irv Noren on the Pacific Coast League’s 1949 championship team.

“My dad’s in the picture,” I said. “And so is Sandlock, Frank Kelleher and Maltzburger.”

“We cut your dad out,” the man confessed.

“You know what my dad was like,” I said. “He’ll rise from his grave and kick your ass.”

“We know that. We’re sorry.”

***

One had to be around to appreciate what the old Pacific Coast league meant to kids my age, which most of these people running and attending the reunion were when the league was all we had out here, the games were televised, the rivalries were rabid and tribal. I was at the game during The Brawl between the Angels and Stars, and since my father was in the thick of it, I told these geezers how I was out beyond the ropes in the outfield for the crowd over-flow, fought with Star knot-hole kids, and ran across the field and through the stadium and into the clubhouse, where, after the half hour brawl that took 50 LAPD to stop, the clubhouse looked like a field hospital in a combat zone.

One man in a wheel chair told me, “Those were the days. I loved the San Francisco Seals. That’s where I’m from. I’m still pissed off the Giants and Dodgers came out here. What they call the PCL now is a crock of shit.”

The big leagues were what we got on Saturday’s televised “Game of The Week.” The PCL was a quality league full of veterans who’d played in the big leagues and those moving up (Joe DiMaggio, Bill Mazeroski, Ir Noren, Gus Zernial, etc). Games were televised at night Tuesday through Friday with a day game on Saturday and a doubleheader on Sunday. The ball players on all the teams along the coast—from Seattle down to San Diego—were heroes to us kids, and since I was the son of one of these men, to come to this reunion was a nostalgic journey and a thrill unparalleled.

Wherever I went, with my three friends who came with me, I told stories. Dick Adams, 96, former Hollywood Star, player-manager, high school teacher-coach, professional musician, sat at a table with his baseball cards, a few teeth missing, bright and jovial, telling stories. I told him of the time a pitcher named Bear Tracks Greer with Houston of the Texas league dusted my dad, who played for Beaumont, four times. Dad was ready to charge this scary backwoods monster, when the catcher warned, “Bear’s crazy. He’s not like other people, he’ll drill you with that ball from five feet, right between the eyes, dehorn you. He can’t get you out, so he figures if he’s gonna walk you he might as well knock you down four times—nothing personal.”

“Knowing your dad,” Dick said, “I’m surprised he didn’t charge him.”

“He was backwoods, Dick. Crazier than Bobo Newsome. Only reason Bear Tracks Greer wasn’t in the big leagues was because he was too crazy, tearing up bars at night—uncivilized. He met dad in the clubhouse at the Texas League All Star game, drunk as a skunk, put his arm around him and said he loved him and offered him a slug of the jug he was holding. He was supposed to start the game but passed out on the training table.”

“Yeh, if he’s crazier than Bobo, I can see it.”

Dick then told me and my friends about a woman in an elevator who informed Joe DiMaggio, who was with two pals, she could make him happier than his wife of the time—Marilyn Monroe. When Joe refused, his buddies asked if she’d mind taking them on instead. She told them to get lost.

Dick left us with this one: “I never drank much and I’m still kicking at 96, but I only got one year in the big leagues. My brother Bobby drank like hell and got in 14 years!”

***

Later, a good Samaritan found the glossy of the original photo that had left my dad out. My pals and I wandered over and met with Noren. He was still standing, cane discarded, asked one of my pals, Dave, if he could get him a glass of water. Dave took off. When he returned, Irv thanked him, drank, and we got him to talk. The man was a star athlete at Pasadena High and Pasadena City College, actually played professional basketball for Chicago in the NBA during the 1946-47 season.

He talked of his baseball teammates, guys like Hank Bauer and manager Ralph Houk, who served in WWII. “Seems like all of us served, and a lot of those guys saw heavy action, but they never talked about it. Mickey Grasso, a catcher, my teammate with the Senators, was a tank commander, in charge of a bunch of those cracker-box tanks we had, and they were no match for those damn Panzer tanks, and they were out-numbered. It was toward the end of the war, so Mickey had his guys jump out of their tanks and give the heil Hitler salute. You were better off captured by the Germans, because they weren’t like the Japanese.”

I held the black-and-white glossy of Irv and dad and his teammates and the celebrity singer. They all looked so young, and especially Irv, who was 24 at the time and about to go up the following year to start his big league career. Now Irv was the last one standing, Mike Sandlock having died recently at 100. Mike used to pick me up off the ground when I was a 7-year-old in the clubhouse, rub my face against his rough beard, and say, “You a lover or a fighter, Little Meat?”

“A fighter!”

“Thatta boy.”

My friend snapped a photo of Irv and me, the photo held out front in my hand. Afterwards Irv sipped his water and asked, “Who brought me this glass of water?”

Dave said, “I did.”

“Thank you very much,” Irv said, all grace and appreciation, just like he played the game. §

Dell Franklin writes from his home in Cayucos, Calif., where he lives with his rescue dog, Wilbur. More of his sports essays can be found at his website: dellfranklin.com.

The Great Mother

She nurtures and devours

CULTURE.devouring mother

A pantheon of mythological devouring mothers from Durga to Kali to Isis reaches across cultures and down through history. There’s even a tiger goddess who both nurtures and devours.

by Stacey Warde

A soft gentle voice, much like my mother’s, calls to me, a young boy of 4, while I sleep, “Stacey, Stacey, Stacey….”

I awaken in the dream and look about the room from my top bunk; in the bunk below, my younger brother sleeps soundly.

I notice the squarish light fixture on the ceiling in the darkness, and turn my gaze to the bedroom door.

At the side of my upper bunk, towering menacingly above me, nearly touching the ceiling with her enormous head, a saber-toothed tiger, blood dripping from her fangs, walking on her hind legs, slowly approaches me. My heart begins to pound wildly with fear.

As she nears, I can see my mother’s sweatshirt on the saber-toothed monster. I start screaming until my real mother appears.

I had the worst recurring nightmares as a child; ghouls, monsters and wild animals filled my early childhood dreams.

These dreadful nightmares occurred with alarming regularity. I sensed concern from my young parents, and from relatives at whose homes I often slept, where I could awaken an entire household with blood-curdling screams in the middle of the night.

“What’s wrong with him?” I remember an older cousin, whose room I once shared, asking my aunt. I was staying with them, and attending school in Laguna Beach, where mom grew up, while she recovered from a life-threatening illness.

“Nothing’s wrong with him,” my aunt said, “he’s just having a bad dream.”

“Yeah, but does he have to do it in here?”

Finally, Jiminy Cricket appeared in a dream, probably stirred by a Disney episode I might have seen in which he asks Pinocchio, the wooden puppet, if he’d like to become a real boy, and in the first of a series of lessons sings “Always let your conscience be your guide.”

“When you get into trouble and you don’t know right from wrong, all you gotta do is give a little whistle.”

I could give a little whistle and feel safe again. I’m not sure I even had a conscience then but I wanted to be a real boy and needed the security offered by this peculiar animated bug friend.

I have no idea what triggered my rescue from these night time horrors of a devouring mother by this bumbling Disney character, but the nightmares ceased.

I worked on becoming a real boy.

I wavered between two questions that sprung from this recurring nightmare, adding to the horror and confusion it brought: What did this monster do with my mother? When did my mother become a monster?

I’ve since learned through psychology that a devouring mother image suggests an overbearing and anxious woman attempting to compensate for her deficiencies and insecurities. She’s controlling and critical. She can be harsh and judgmental.

The sons of these mothers often grow up to be puers, little boys who need their mommies, who never venture out beyond the safety of mom’s apron strings and become independent men, or the authors and heroes of their own lives. They remain dependent and seek dependencies in relationships that mimic their mother complex.

They are commitment phobes, never quite able to break the primitive bond with mother. The challenge is to break away, to pursue a life free from maternal dependencies or attachments, to become a person of independent means and bearing and character.

This is no easy feat for boys whose mothers were themselves still children when they gave birth.

In a way, mother and I grew up together.

She was 17 when she gave birth to me. I suspect she felt a lot of insecurities, as any teenage mother would, and she mustn’t have felt any more secure when, at the age of 20, she was left alone with two young boys, after my father walked out on us and never returned.

I suspect she did her best to protect me and my brother, to give us a safe haven from the rigors and perils of life. I never felt unsafe, except when monsters pursued me in the night.

***

Western tradition’s finest example of a puer who bolts from under his mother’s wings and grows into a man of formidable power and influence is Perceval.

Through trial and error, he moves beyond the clutches of his overbearing and protective mother, who does not want him to become a warrior like his deceased (read “absent”) father, killed in battle when Perceval was too young to remember.

Eventually, by following his bliss, and through numerous mishaps and the counsel of more worldly, perhaps wiser, souls, he grows to become one of the great knights of the Roundtable.

***

Once, I remember flying over the front seat from where I stood on the back seat in one of those clunky ‘50s chevys, long before seat belts were mandatory, when mom had to suddenly apply the brakes. I wound up on the floor boards under the glove box.

“Are you OK?” she asked in a panic. I was fine.

She was pugnacious and caring, if not overwhelmed and frightened in those early years. She found her way, remarried, built a home and family; and I never had another nightmare of a devouring, blood-dripping, saber-toothed tiger wearing my mother’s sweatshirt.

A pantheon of mythological devouring mothers from Durga to Kali to Isis reaches across cultures and down through history. There’s even a tiger goddess who both nurtures and devours. Ultimately, as these powerful figures remind us, we shall all be devoured by the Great Mother Earth.

But that’s not all.

The First Mother also nurtures and sustains.

On the more personal level, of course, the same holds true for our mothers who birthed us. They can also nurture and sustain and devour.

It seems the only way out, the only way to free one’s self from the harm of this devourer is to create a life of one’s own, grounded in but not held captive by mother’s nurturing and protective instincts.

Eventually, a man must break away from his mother and become his own person. Cultures recognize this in which boys are taken at a certain age from their mothers and joined to the men, from whom they learn the skills necessary to survive.

In the U.S., this does not always happen. Many men grow up without a father, their upbringing charged mostly to their mother, who attempts to be all things to her children. Sometimes, boys will grow up, as I did, with dependencies which can be extremely difficult to overcome.

I’ve lived the greater part of my life under the shadow of this primal monster of my early childhood nightmares, afraid to disappoint or to stray too far. But I’ve also learned to venture out, believing that behind my biggest dragons are my deepest treasures.

Mom, meanwhile, would like nothing more than for me to uncover these treasures, my birthright, to live in good conscience and when troubled with fears of being devoured to give a little whistle.§

Stacey Warde is publisher of The Rogue Voice. He can be reached at roguewarde@gmail.com.

Bernie v. Hillary

CULTURE.bernie-sanders-objects

<> on January 29, 2013 in Washington, DC.

Their differences aren’t a battle between good and evil

by Mark Russell

OK, here’s the thing with the Democratic primary: everyone imagines they are supporting the one candidate who can save us from the abyss and feel aggrieved and belittled by the other side. I am personally a Bernie Sanders supporter, but the truth is that this is not a battle between good and evil so much as an awkward contest between two animals who evolved in entirely different ecosystems.

Hillary Clinton is like a grizzled hunter in the Amazon. Every day is a battle for survival. She has suffered every venom and poison imaginable and from her time as being the wife of a Democratic governor in a red state to being Secretary of State to the most besieged administration in modern history, she has lived her entire life in a rainforest filled with things determined to kill her. Her political survival instincts have adapted accordingly.

Bernie Sanders is like a wallaby. He hails from the benign ecosystem known as Vermont, where he lacks any natural predators. He will be the beloved senator from Vermont for as long as he cares to be. So he hops around wherever he wants, unafraid that anyone might use his words to crucify him. Propose a $15 minimum wage? Just have a friendly chat with anyone who disagrees. Call yourself a “socialist?” Sure, why not? We’re all friends here. On the other side of the world, though, if Hillary Clinton channels her inner Eleanor Roosevelt, the Republicans call it a seance. Write a few State Department emails from your personal server? Suddenly there’s a major Congressional investigation, even though nobody cared when previous Secretaries of State did exactly the same thing.

Bernie’s instincts have evolved so he feels no danger in exposing his head to say what he thinks, however far afield it may be from current political reality. Hillary’s instincts, on the other hand, have adapted in a harsher environment, where extreme cautiousness and distrust are rewarded.

Likewise, the two candidates’ strengths and weaknesses are a direct consequence of their respective environments. Three decades of jungle warfare against Republicans has left Hillary battle-tested and well-versed in the dark arts of political campaigning. She will, I have no doubt, annihilate whoever emerges from the Republican Convention and be drinking out of their skull by November. But at the same time, this experience has made her reticent to take strong positions, to say things that could be later used against her. She tends to “evolve” rather than stand on principle. Bernie has no such qualms and, from the very beginning, has taken principled stands on the Iraq War, universal health insurance, gay marriage, etc., which while controversial at the time, have since been borne out by history. He is the forward-thinking visionary that Hillary is not, but he also seems naively unprepared for the shitwave of dirty tricks and false accusations that will come his way if and when he has to run a national campaign against a Donald Trump or a Ted Cruz.

I’m not telling you who to vote for in the Democratic primary. Thanks to decades of self-selecting news coverage, extreme right-wing radio, and the derangement induced by the reality that the white male vote is no longer enough to carry national elections, the GOP field has been reduced to an incoherent fever dream of xenophobia and obsolescence. Either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders would be infinitely preferable to anyone in that mental ward. This primary is not a choice between good and evil, as some Democrats have made it out to be, but rather the choice between different types of leaders, the visionary versus the tactician, whose approach to politics has largely been forged by differences in environment rather than character. §

Mark Russell is the author of God Is Disappointed in You and Apocrypha Now. He also writes the comic book series Prez and The Flintstones for DC Comics. He lives and works in Portland, Oregon.

White Sox temper tantrums

Boo-hoo!

by Dell Franklin

Between the ages of 7 and 10, I grew up hanging around the clubhouse and dugout and ballfields where my dad, a former big-leaguer, played, and I wonder just what the hell the 14-year-old son of Chicago White Sox first baseman, Adam LaRoche, is doing hanging around the clubhouse 24/7 when he should be out playing ball with and against his peers in Babe Ruth League or American Legion. The situation seems odd and abnormal, and the fact that his father allows it is even odder and more abnormal.

Chicago White Sox designated hitter Adam LaRoche (25) sits with his son Drake, 13, in the White Sox dugout at U.S. Cellular Field before a game against the Houston Astros on June 8, 2015 in Chicago. (Erin Hooley/Chicago Tribune/TNS)

Chicago White Sox designated hitter Adam LaRoche (25) sits with his son Drake, 13, in the White Sox dugout at U.S. Cellular Field before a game against the Houston Astros on June 8, 2015 in Chicago. (Erin Hooley/Chicago Tribune/TNS)

My father played for Detroit before WWII and later, from 1949 until retirement in 1953, in the old Pacific Coast League for the Hollywood Stars, San Diego Padres, and LA Angels. While with the Stars, I hung out in the clubhouse with him and ventured onto the ballfield during batting practice and learned how to handle a bat and glove while playing pepper against the centerfield fence with dad’s fellow infielders, Gene Handley, Eddie Baxes, Lou Stringer, and Johnny O’Neill. These guys literally groomed me to be a ball player, and I took to it like a Lab retriever pursuing a tennis ball hurled into the ocean. All of these players had endured tough times from the Great Depression, some had been hardened by war, and they were not the types to baby me if I was going to hang out with them. Many of the ball player’s sons my age wanted no part of the clubhouse.

“You a lover or a fighter, Meat?” they’d ask me.

“A fighter!”

“Naw, we heard you were a lover boy.”

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Dell Franklin as a boy with his father, Murray, who played with the Hollywood Stars. Photo courtesy of dellfranklin.com

The kidding was harsh. If I wanted to hang here, I learned to take it and witnessed these men absolutely relishing the banter of tough love with each other, and realized early on that this was their way of accepting you as a tough kid addicted to the game they considered sacrosanct. To make myself useful, I polished their spikes and boned their bats and accepted having a towel snapped at my ass and my head roughed.

Later, after dad retired, I could not fathom as a teenager being in this same situation.

At this point I was making my own way, and felt I did not deserve to be rubbing elbows with these men, who had paid their dues and hard knocks to arrive at such an exalted level. I would have felt squeamish, undeserving, an intruder. Even as a little kid I realized some of these men, crude and downright profane, did not WANT a child hanging around and holding them back from the kind of obscene behavior and pranks that was part of their culture.

What is truly embarrassing and insane in this year, 2016, are Chicago White Sox players supporting Adam LaRoche, who quit baseball when the GM and owner of the White Sox wanted his 14-year-old kid to cease being a nonstop presence in the clubhouse and field, perhaps feeling he was starting to be a distraction, or perhaps certain players felt they could not be themselves around an adolescent.

The fact that these players staged a boycott of a spring training game and their manager supported them yet eventually talked them into playing is as bush and downright stupid as anything we’ve seen in baseball ever.

Try and imagine something like this happening in the past, when there was no player’s union, no agents, no multi-million dollar contracts, no big leaguers raising their kids in gated communities, but instead one owner who would flat out release you to go sell cars or insurance or dig ditches if you acted in such a childish, outrageous way.

When my dad was traded from San Diego to Los Angeles in 1953, the ownership, unlike the Stars and Padres, did not allow kids like me to be in the clubhouse, dugout or on the ballfield, possibly for insurance reasons. So be it. Those were the rules. By this time I was starting to feel somewhat guilty about the advantages I’d already experienced by being a ballplayer’s son at such a high level, where I was privileged to be taught by professionals and to sit and soak up the game like osmosis, so that my instincts and know-how was already on a 19-year-old’s level.

Evidently, LaRoche possesses what the pundits are calling “fuck you” money, so that he doesn’t need $13 million in paychecks, which indicates his lack of passion for the game. That he stunk last year on a lifeless, spiritless team going through the motions, playing for a rather sedate manager, says it all—his teammates have their heads so far up their asses they threw tantrums after this 14-year-old, who even had his own locker beside his dad, was told he had to cut down on time spent with a ball club the GM and ownership actually wanted to see start winning a few ball games and be in contention.

These ball players are showing themselves to be petulant, entitled brats with no clue as to what a fan goes through and pays to watch them wallow in mediocrity. Poor things, they had their 14-year-old mascot taken away! Boo-hoo! Life is so unfair. Every single one of those players protesting, even discussing a boycott, ought to be suspended or sent down and replaced by hungry minor leaguers who wouldn’t mind the banishment of a 14-year-old who ought to be out competing against his peers instead of being one of the boys.

Word is, the players’ union will have something to say about it. Go ahead and quit, LaRoche, and take your kid to watch a high school game—maybe he’ll learn a little something about life. §

Dell Franklin writes from his home in Cayucos, Calif., where he lives with his rescue dog, Wilbur, and whose head spins over the entitlements and pampering and whimpering of today’s professional athletes. For more of Dell’s insights and commentary on sports, politics and culture, visit dellfranklin.com, where this article was first published.

In your face, whitey!

Cam Newton and the Ali factor

by Dell Franklin

Cam, beyond movie-star handsome, has the rehearsed, dazzling smile of a born-to-be winner of unprecedented narcissism with dollar signs dangling like blinking neon.

Cam, beyond movie-star handsome, has the rehearsed, dazzling smile of a born-to-be winner of unprecedented narcissism with dollar signs dangling like blinking neon.

Cam Newton, you marvelous beast, us white folks so want black folks like you all to act like us, be like us, you know, more reserved, carefully spoken, modest, inhibited, supposedly respectful of opponents and fans and especially the institutions that for centuries, as a black man, gave you the royal shaft. I mean, it gets under our skin like a painful itch that won’t go away when we see a super-humanly talented black dude like yourself brim with confidence, strut your stuff, disdain our cultural traditions, conquer the stage of the most exalted sport in our realm—football.

It’s kind of like when the great Muhammad Ali conquered the then most exalted sport in the entire world back in the 1960s—boxing.

“I am the greatest!” Ali exclaimed with righteous fury as he danced around the ring, his opponent either crumpled on the canvas or blear-eyed on his stool. “I am champion of the world!”

And he was.

“I am beautiful,” Ali boasted. And to women, and I suppose white women, too—tsk tsk—he was. But to white men he was a source of bitter resentment and hateful anger that this cocky, uppity nigger, who was once Cassius Clay, had converted to Islam and changed his name to Ali and was knocking out and embarrassing white pugs all over the place, clowning and mocking them as he did so, showboating, and not saying it, but implying, “IN YOUR FACE, WHITEY!”

***

Cam’s got it down, like he made a study of it, first things first flashing a Magic Johnson-like smile to deter all negative thoughts, almost as if he talked to the Magic man who told him to keep on smiling, brother, and there ain’t nothin’ they can do, you’ll get ads, ads and ads and ads, and the kids’ll love yah, it’s hard to resist a smile, bro’, no matter how phony your spiel.

Thing is, Magic’s smile is utterly spontaneous and all encompassing while oozing sincerity and a nameless joy at living that includes everybody. And Cam, beyond movie-star handsome, has the rehearsed, dazzling smile of a born-to-be winner of unprecedented narcissism with dollar signs dangling like blinking neon.

So Cam, flashing that magnetic row of piano keys, mentions that as a black man, talented as he is, bigger than life that he is (kind of like Wilt and Shaq), he scares people, and I suppose he means us whiteys, because black folks sure as hell ain’t gonna be scared, and shouldn’t be, because, like Ali, he is theirs!

CULTURE.Muhammad_Ali_1966But he’s different than Ali in that although Ali’s clowning, mocking, poetry spewing and boasting and joshing with and scolding the press for disbelieving his beliefs and feats was part of an act; he did it with a twinkle in his eye, and a personality and wit so contagious, so endearing, you just had to love the guy. Ali had everybody in the press room in stitches half the time, was beyond comfortable on stage—in his glory, in fact—like a great comedian who had the audience transfixed on his every next word.

Cam, on stage, is a tortured, cringe-worthy attempt at acting that an acting teacher and class would crucify. Back a few seasons ago, when the Panthers were losing, his overly distraught sap sessions after losses were maudlin drivel, his moping, his blaming of himself, so uncharacteristic of an egomaniac used to total, unquestioned dominance and constant adulation.

This whole shtick, or schlock, is embarrassing. What’s more, unlike Ali, he is boring, like a knockout beauty queen so pursued and placed on an untouchable pedestal there was never time to form a real personality outside of fielding adulation and toady behavior from hopeful hat-in-hand suitors.

The trouble with a lot of athletes of his ilk.

Even his act of ripping off the Superman cape and joggling his head and saluting and giving away footballs to children after touchdowns seems a calculated PR move, the first act causing the squeamish emperors of the league in their luxury booths to wince at the over-the-top showmanship, but then to swoon with approval at the big black Adonis handing a football to a little white kid, another trick to make one think the NFL owners are good guys and not greedy criminals, that the entire bloodsucking organization of zillionaires and its employees are about humanity and community.

When Newton talks about being scary, does he mean big and black scary? You know, like the terrifying visage of a scowling Sonny Liston back in the 1960s, when Ali called him “The Big Ugly Bear?” Or Mike Tyson, slaughtering opponents with a cold-blooded calm, his face a mask of evil intent?

Come on, dude, who do you think you’re kidding? Ali scared white folks because he represented what was happening in all of sports—the black man taking over because he was fiercer, hungrier, more dynamic, bigger, faster, and goddammit, whether you like it or not, in many cases, smarter! And rubbing it in on the white hordes.

Black athletes were coming. They dominated Olympics track and field, baseball, football, basketball, and boxing. Marciano was gone and we had Ali, Frazier, Holmes. In baseball, Musial, Williams and DiMaggio were gone, and besides Mickey Mantle, we had Mays, Aaron, Clemente, Frank Robinson. And in basketball it was already confirmed black men reigned over white inferiors.

Most of those great black athletes were ingrained to remain humble and duty-bound appreciative for white club owners to give them a chance and in some cases were referred to as “Uncle Toms.”

But not Ali. His was an individual sport, and he was the greatest, was champion of the world, and although there is no proof whatsoever that this man who employed Ferdie Pacheco as his doctor and Angelo Dundee as his trainer had a problem with white people, he was telling the rest of us with the ferocity of a roaring lion, “I am a black Muslim man, I am not fighting your stupid war,  I’m seein’ black brothers getting killed by the bushel, so, In Your Face, Whitey!”

Cam Newton, you ain’t scarin’ nobody, and your act is so easy to see through that the more you win, and the longer you’re on the stage, the easier it’s going to be see what a complete phony you are, cheesy smile and all.§

Dell Franklin is a passionate sports enthusiast and writer who lives in Cayucos, Calif., where he laments the growing cancer of entitled pro athletes in clubhouses around the nation. More of his essays are available at dellfranklin.com.

Takeaways From the Iowa Caucuses In Headlines And Slogans You Might Have Missed In Mainstream Reports

(With Links to All The Real News You Need If You Weren’t Watching Democracy In Action)

by Jason Vest

COMMENT.TED CRUZIowa Voters To Trump: You’re Not Exactly Fired, But We Really Like The Cruz And Rubio Apprentices

GOP Establishment Hopes Trump’s Public Mulling About ‘Buying a Farm‘ Indicates Subconscious Death Wish

Trump Now Claims He Mixed Up Fox News Women Who Might Pose Threat To His Campaign; Really Meant To Try To Bully Palin Into Submission

Trump: Expectations of Decisive Iowa Win, and With It Actual Explosion of Rich Lowry and Bill Kristol’s Heads, Dashed;  Republicans and Democrats Alike Rue Lack of Latter, Start Plotting on How to Go Dave Brat On Editors They Both Hate

Cruz Gracious In Defeating Iowa Ethanol Lobby: Says Corn Has Its Place

Rubio To Jeb: My Neocons Are Better Than Your Neocons

Rubio To Christie: My Establishment Hedge Fund Donors Are Better Than Your Establishment Hedge Fund Donors

Cruz To Rubio And Christie: I Don’t Know If It’s More Amazing That My Establishment Hedge Fund Donors Are Better Than Both Y’All’s, Or That I Get Their Money AND Get To Be An “Anti-Establishment Candidate”

Rubio: My Strong Third-Place Finish Is So Much Easier to Understand Than My Three Houses

Sanders to Clinton: Triangulate This

Clinton: Of the 1%, Winning by .3%

Clinton’s Future: Looking Like Rahm Emmanuel’s Present?

Sanders: To The Concord Station

Sanders To Channel Upton Sinclair:  I, President: A True Story of the Future shortly forthcoming; likely sequel I, Candidate for President; and How I Got Licked Scheduled for 2017 Release

Cruz: God, Goldwater, and Goldman Sachs

Jeb’s Hail-Mary Schiavo Ad Only Latest Reflection of Bush Campaign Being Brain-Dead And On Life-Support

Carson: Craps Pants In Debates and In Iowa; Flees to Bush and Rubio’s Dirty State To Rinse Stains

Jesus to Carson: You Remind Me Of Another Time I Had To Deliver Some Bad News About Contest Prospects

O’Malley: Being In This One Percent Blows

Christie: Eating It In Iowa, Saving Room for New Hampshire

Santorum: Living Up To The Name In Shitty Numbers, Gets Flushed

Huckabee: I (Heart) Duggars

Fiorina: Like Hewlett-Packard When She Ran It: On The Cutting Edge Of Marginality

Paul: Dude, Where’s My Utopian Voter Bloc?

Paul: Iowa Shrugged

Kasich: Apparently Having Been an Ax-Wielding Budget Zealot in the Reagan and Gingrich Revolutions and Current Governor of Ohio Only Gets You Two Bits and a Cup of Coffee in Iowa

Gilmore: Less Than Zero. §

Jason Vest agrees with H.L. Mencken that it’s almost impossible to make a career in politics without embracing the ignoble and vulgar.