One New York Life

I missed the meeting when communist dictator Hugo Chavez became the crazy left’s favorite world leader. I guess, somewhere along the line, they gave up pretending they just want to be super-liberal like Europe and just put their socialist cards on the table and they were all RED!!

As such, you’ve begun to find praises of Hugo Chavez’s awesomeness in the most random of articles, like This One from Z-Net. I hadn’t happened upon Z-Net before, but their tag line is “The Spirit of Resistence Lives On”. I assume this means “middle class white people with guilt blog about the injustices of the world from their Iowa McMansions”.

You’ll recognize the format

Can’t Knock the Hassle: Chavez Challenges Baseball

Communist dictator who has celebrating the impending doom of the United States and who is trying to destabilize other countries in Central America to serve his own agenda: hero. Major League Baseball: baddies.

Owners love Latin America for the same reason Disney can’t get enough of Haiti: they, can sign children for pennies, treat them like trash when they’re finished, and face contact lens-thin regulations for their troubles.

So…. basically…. just like they do in the US? You think bottom-of-the-barrel college kids are treated any better? We’re attacking the Mouse, too? Well… maybe we can get along.

The impact on the athletes can be devastating. “Super Mario” Encarnación, once the most prized prospect of the Oakland As, was found dead in a Taipei motel room in October 2006, after an apparent drug overdose. He had been playing at the margins of the semi-pro baseball circuit desperate to not return home a failure to the DR. He returned, only when his friend former AL MVP Miguel Tejada, paid to have his body shipped back to their village from Japan.

Again: waiting to hear the difference between how Latin players are treated vs. how every other baseball player in the league is treated. If some random minor league player from the US ODed on horse steroids in a hotel room, how quickly do you think the team and baseball would distance itself from that player? Do you think they’d pay any funeral costs? The answer: not unless he left baseball to join the military after September 11th.

Encarnación did do better than Lino Ortiz. The nineteen-year-old pitcher was about to be called up to the Majors when he died from taking an animal steroid in the DR looking for an edge. Steroids are actually legal and available over the counter, but their cost makes them prohibitive. Lino bought his from the pet store and met an all-too-early-death.

Not sure what this paragraph is supposed to evoke. Am I supposed to feel bad because some random Venezuelan pitcher saw dollar signs, tried to take a shortcut, and paid with his life? Am I supposed to be outraged because steroids are too expensive in Venezuela? Am I supposed to feel different emotions than I do for Len Bias – a guy who had everything ahead of him and stupidly killed himself before hitting the big time? Am I supposed to feel happy that American teenagers have been able to figure out how to safely use steroids and Venezuelans have not? I’m not sure.

These two examples are retarded. In one sentence, it tells us how much we should care for these sovereign nation and the sanctity of their people. In the other, it tells us that we Americans should apply our moral values to them and insist they live by it. We think steroids are bad – so should they. We think cockfighting is bad – so should they. This always works out well. Remember when we thought Iraqis should be free whether they like it or not? That’s worked out smashingly.

After the DR, the country that supplies the most talent in Latin America is Venezuela. There are now more than fifty players from Venezuela in Major League Baseball, including superstars like Johan Santana, Magglio Ordoñez and Miguel Cabrera. In the last twenty years, 200 Venezuelans have played in the Major Leagues with more than 1,000 in the minors. And yet despite this bounty of talent, the idiots are starting to scamper from Venezuela because Hugo Chávez is demanding that owners pay for the privilege of their pillage.

Just so we have this straight: “privilege of their pillage” is “scouting the country for talent and offering the best of the best $350k/year.” Some might also call this “college” or “high school”. The “idiots” might also realize that doing business in a country with socialized business is a defeatist proposition. You idiot.

Lou Meléndez, MLB’s vice president for international operations, was more than miffed to receive documents that called for instituting employee and player protections and requiring teams to pay out 10 percent of players’ signing bonuses to the government.

In fairness… if the people were American they’d be paying a third of the signing bonuses to the government. This does seem like a good deal.

Chávez wants to tax MLB for what they take from the country. “We don’t pay federations money for signing players anywhere in the world, and we don’t expect to do so. It’s certainly not a way to conduct business,” huffed Meléndez. “When you see certain industries that are being nationalized, you begin to wonder if they are going to nationalize the baseball industry in Venezuela.”

Y’see, when you pay a foreign government to scout their players, that’s kind of like supporting a style of government you may not agree with. If you fund it, you start to run into the whole problem of “paying for death camps” and “paying to imprison people who speak out against the government.” But, I know, Mr. Chavez does no wrong. Only our government does. Mr. Chavez has certainly never participated in torturing of protesters or anything like that. He’s perfect. Only the US Government would stoop so low as torture. LA RESISTANCE!!!

Major league baseball pays players who then pay their government taxes. Why is this a problem? Could it be, maybe, that once the players can get out of the country they no longer want to fund their government? Basically, Toolface is arguing that baseball should pay a posting fee to Hugo Chavez to look at a player. Remember when everyone made fun of the Red Sox for paying $50 million to have a conversation with Dice-K? This is that… but for every player that comes out of Venezuela.

As ESPN wrote, “There has been speculation, more internal than public so far, that Chávez, a socialist and self-proclaimed revolutionary who took office in 1999, will turn Venezuela into the next Cuba. In other words, some worry that baseball in Venezuela will serve to illustrate (once again) how politics spills over into sport.”

The hypocrisy is stunning.

Just because you use a forceful single line paragraph doesn’t make it true. Especially when there was no hypocrisy in the previous two sentences AS THEY WERE THOUGHTS FROM TWO DIFFERENT ENTITIES.

Heaven forfend, there is nothing “political” about a multibillion-dollar business running roughshod over an entire nation with no accountability for the dashed dreams of the 99 percent who don’t make it stateside. And there is surely nothing political about shutting down your baseball academy for fear that the natives might demand business practices that might approximate the humane.

The 2007 baseball draft featured 1,453 picks. Of those 1,453 young men, maybe 1,400 will ever make it to the big leagues. Of those 53 that make it to the big league, maybe… MAYBE… 25 will some day make a very good living at the sport. Of those 25, 2 may get one of THOSE contracts. Where is your worthless diatribe against Bobby Joe Smith whose dream of leaving the cornfields of Iowa to stand at the plate of Yankee Stadium so he doesn’t have to work in a textile factory for minimum wage until his back gives out? Are those people beneath your notice? Could it be the gentle form of liberal racism that decides “those people are too stupid to make their own decisions. We have to make it for them.” There is nothing humane about making to big league baseball no matter what country you’re from. Guys in the minor league would kill your mother if it meant opening up a roster spot while you’re at the funeral. It’s competitive, unforgiving, and only the best even have a chance to make it out. Do you think anybody cares about your country of origin?

Already, the Baltimore Orioles, Boston Red Sox, and San Diego Padres have cut and run. “We just figured we might as well do it [then] to avoid some of the hassle of having to deal with some of the legislation that Chávez passes down there in hiring coaches, worrying about severance pay, and just getting in and out of the country,” Juan Lara of the Padres told the media.

“This country is making it hard for us to do our job. Cuba has been doing this for years. Yet, Cuban players that want to play in the US always find their way here. You know what… do what you gotta, Hugo; we’ll be over here.” Also: where is the problem with this? You’re expressing your complete disdain with baseball interfering in the hopes and dreams of the baseball players in this country. The three teams you’ve mentioned have decided not to do that. No hopes and dreams will be crushed with the support of the Red Sox. Oh wait, it’s probably only OK if they do it on your terms, because that’s really what it’s all about, isn’t it? You want business to do things on your terms, because that’s RESISTANCE, BABY.

This tension exposes the rot at the heart of this relationship. Chávez dares demand regulation and the first instinct of the owners is to flee toward more exploitable ground. Not only is Chávez right to pressure baseball to actually give something back, other countries-the Dominican Republic, in particular-should follow his lead.

They should… and then we won’t get players from there, either.

Every year, millions of Latin American children are shredded as they reach to escape poverty with a bat and a ball. It’s long past time MLB gave something back to the nations they so blithely upend. Even an idiot can see that.

Major League Baseball is responsible for Johan Santana making $200 million. Magglio Ordonez, because of Major League Baseball, is making about $100 million. Wouldn’t one think that the players being paid the money should take care of their country of origin? I’m failing to see why it’s baseball’s responsibility to happily donate money to possibly corrupt governments. Baseball’s unfair. Life’s unfair. Get over it. Not everyone gets to play baseball.

I love when writers make a point and then insist that you’d be an idiot not to agree with them. It’s a very convincing argument. As a matter of fact, I insist that Drillbit Taylor should be nominated for Best Picture next year and you’d be an idiot to disagree with me. Idiot.

VIVE LA RESISTANCE!!!