The Graying of the Boys of October

The World Series hopes of the New York Yankees came to a conclusive end last night at the hands of the younger and more resilient Texas Rangers. The Rangers, in winning Game Six of the A.L.C.S. will get to their first World Series berth in their almost 50-year history (first as the "expansion" Washington Senators in 1961, and as the Texas Rangers since 1972). They will be playing the winner of the N.L.D.S., in which the San Francisco Giants have a (surprising) 3-2 lead against the fearsome Philadelphia Phillies. While a repeat Yankees-Phillies World Series would doubtless have fared higher in the ratings, baseball itself might benefit from an "all-underdog" contest. Indeed, when the Giants won their last World Series, they were playing in the Polo Grounds, and it was 1954!

As a long-time Yankee fan, who remembers when Joe DiMaggio still patrolled center-field, I've got a repository of (mostly) great memories. Frankly, I've had more thrills than fans of other teams could expect in several lifetimes, and am most happy for that fact. But even though the Yankee uniforms look the same, I can't help but recognize that people drop out of the lineup with every passing year. Although augmented by free-agency, change is, alas, nothing if not the nature of the game. While most players move around over the course of their careers, there are still some who stay with the same team with which they were rookies. The length a baseball careers vary greatly as well, some lasting less than a single season, with others extending beyond twenty-years! With close to sixty-years (gasp!) as a Yankee fan, I have seen the skills of many wonderful young athletes wane with the passage of time. I remember when Phil Rizzuto was unceremoniously dropped from the lineup and "reassigned" to the broadcast booth in the middle of the season. It was a rude awakening for me of the harsh realities of baseball, and how very unsentimental the game actually is at its core. It is ironic how our heroes of old are celebrated at old-timer's days, when--as players-- they were discarded as quickly as yesterday's milk as soon as their shelf-life ended. Even Babe Ruth, a man whose name is still synonymous with the Yankees, was dispatched to the Boston Braves in 1935. One likes to think that the Babe could have been provided a more graceful exit. I mean, if not him, who? Jackie Robinson, the great pioneer against segregation in baseball, and a man who was the very heart of the old Brooklyn Dodgers, retired before accepting an end-of-career trade to the New York Giants. "Thanks, Jackie, please close the door on your way out! But such is the nature of the sport, indeed, all sports, and, in a way, life itself (for which sports, after all, is but a metaphor).

Last year, when the Yankees brought the World Series Championship back to the Bronx for the first time since 2000 (an eternity for Yankee fans), it seemed a fitting greeting for the new Yankee Stadium, then in its inaugural year. Much was made of the "core four," Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Andy Pettite, and Mariano Rivera, who, as young men, were present on the first of Joe Torre's World Championship teams in 1996, and led the team to its 2009 World Series victory. Good as the Yankees were in 2009, many saw their victories in the post-season more as triumphs of their will to win than being the better team. The mighty Phillies, champions in 2008 were expected to repeat, but fell to the tenacious Yanks in six games.

But alas, that was then, and this was now. For the Yankees, the 2010 season is over, and with it, Messrs. Jeter, Posada, Pettite and Rivera are getting older. In 1996, the ages of the "core four" ranged from 22 to 26. Now the youngest of the four, certain Hall of Famer, Derek Jeter, is 36, and showing it. While he batted a semi-respectable .270, it was nearly 50 points below his lifetime batting average. The oldest, Mariano Rivera (sometimes called, fittingly, "the Great Rivera" is now 40, and showing it as well. Rivera, also a "first ballot" Hall of Famer, had (and, for the most part, still has) the uncanny ability to baffle hitters even if they know what he is doing. For years, he had but a single pitch, the "cut fastball," called so for its ability to move in on the hands of left-handed batters and away from righties. He has single-handedly been more responsible for shattering opponents bats than the rest of baseball's closers combined. But his skills, while still awesome, have visibly frayed. Closers like Rivera are brought in in the last inning, usually to preserve a lead of three runs or less. If they fail to do that, it is called a "blown save." In the Yankee's near-disastrous September, "Mo" blew three saves, more than he had done over a decade of preceding Septembers. Although Andy Pettite was in the process of one of his best seasons, a groin injury curtailed his return. Unfortunately, he has never been quite the same. While he struggled manfully in the A.L.C.S., he twice failed to win. As for Jorge Posada, the once-powerful run producer batted just a few points over .250, and his arm strength is such that opposing base-runners can almost steal on him at will.

As a fan, of course, I have the right to age (and have done so with great consistency) without my abilities being questioned. If I can no longer run around for hours on end on the tennis courts, who (other than I) cares ? My skills as an armchair manager, however, remain undiminished by time. But for professional athletes, perennially forced to compete against younger, stronger players (whose only dream is to replace them), the pressure to not only intense, but incessant. So what does one say to these great athletes, still young as human beings, but in late-middle-age as baseball players. For one, I say thanks. You have given me, and countless fans, great joy over the years. I have applauded your many achievements, and applaud your continued efforts.

One of the most talented players in history to wear a baseball uniform, Mickey Mantle, was a shadow of his former self when he played his last game, but was given the dignity of doing so as a Yankee. So, of course, was Joe DiMaggio, who was able to read the writing on the centerfield wall, and make way for Mantle. I hope that the same courtesies are extended to each of "the core four." I know I'm not the only Yankee fan who could not imagine (much less abide) Derek Jeter playing for another team. So boys, when you do choose to hang up your respective gloves (and I hope it is at times of your own choosing), I will remember not only the summers of your careers when it (seemingly) all came so easily, but for the grace you continued to display as your autumns began to darken. You have (to mix sports metaphors) "fought the good fight," and I cheer you in defeat much as I did in victory. I am very proud of my aging boys of October.

Urban Legends?

Many years ago, tiny alligators (perhaps two inches long) were popular as gifts. Absurd as this may seem, there were lots of weird things going on in what is now thought to be the buttoned-down, repressed 1950's. In fact, people went to parties, had sex, argued about important things, and invented rock and roll. In any event, legend had it that these "pets" were flushed down the toilet as reptilian discards, only to feast on sewage and grow into huge 'gators which patrolled the sewers of New York City to the great danger of the real-life Ed Nortons who made their subterranean livings beneath the manholes of our great metropolis. Happily, this was only urban legend, one of many.

With the advent of the internet, half-truths, rumors, satires, and out-and-out falsehoods, travel across cyberspace with the speed of, well, FIOS. This has posed a danger to those of us who grew up believing that anything printed presupposed a certain degree of diligence beyond that merely spoken or handwritten. Now, official-looking blogs, including mine, carry with them a presumption of authenticity having nothing to so with the probity of its authors. Today, however, I'm not asking you to take anything I say as true. All you have to do is accept the possibility that not everything you read is true simply because it appears in print.

As a lawyer, I have witnessed many things in and out of court that I would have scoffed at as unbelievable, had I not actually experienced them. That said, the yearly "ten-worst" legal occurrences (e.g. the "Stella Awards") bear little or no relationship to the truth. What they do accomplish is to reinforce the public's impression that (to quote Mr. Dooley) "the law is a ass." The most recent of the awards for the most outrageous cases decided in the past year gave first prize to one Mrs. Grezinskie who, after putting her Winnebago in cruise control (at 70 miles per hour), went to the back of her vehicle to (depending on which version you read) either make a sandwich or cup of coffee. When the mobile home went off the road and crashed, she sued for injuries on the grounds that the owner's manual didn't warn against the dangers of leaving the driver's seat when in cruise control. (I guess she thought the craft was on auto-pilot.) Anyway, as a consequence of injuries to herself and her vehicle, she supposedly recovered $1,750,000 plus a new Winnebago. (Seems only fair, right?) Anyway, this clap-trap gets sent around, and the more often it appears, the more credibility it seems to have. People love to re-circulate this nonsense and ask, "Can you believe this!" Uh, no.

I wanted to share with you two recent falsehoods that have been circulating about the web, each of which was passed on to me by well meaning friends or family, who cited them as calls to action against injustice. The first (which I received three times over an 18-month period from the same person) related the story that the United Kingdom had eliminated references to the holocaust from its secondary school curricula, so as not to offend the sensibilities of its growing Muslim population. After reading this, I checked with a lawyer who once worked for me and now has a successful practice as a solicitor in the U.K. In addition, he is actively involved in Jewish affairs. He told me that he was aware of this story, and that it was absolutely untrue. (Apparently, there is one school district that had made holocaust studies "optional," rather than as a required course.) After relating this to the person who sent it to me, I expected I would hear no more about it, perhaps even be copied on the mass mailing she would send to those to whom she had mistakenly circulated the falsehood. When I got the third rehashing of this same story, and called her to remind her of its untruth, she responded, "yes, but wouldn't it be awful if it were true." Now that was a hard point to argue!

(Here's a real-life falsehood that I can't blame on the internet.) I walked into a winter-coat storage facility a few months ago, and overheard the following snippet of a conversation between a customer and the proprietress: "Well, you know he's a Muslim." The proprietress, who knows better, merely nodded in assent. When I asked her, "Let me guess; might she have been talking about our President?", she confirmed that such was the case. When I said "You know that's not true, he's not a Muslim," she responded, "Yes, but he just as well might be." (Yeah, they're the worst kind!)

Most recently, I received a widely-circulated e-mail from a childhood friend, who admitted that, while he wanted to check on the accuracy of the piece, he was so alarmed that he wanted to send it to everyone he knew first. It cited a supposed 2008 appearance by then-candidate Obama on "Meet the Press," when he gave the following responses to questions from a (non-existent) Washington Post reporter. In the "interview," Senator Obama was said to explain that he (a) did not wear the American flag lapel pin because he did not want to offend people who see the U.S. as a negative force in the world, and (b) that the national anthem should be changed from the "Star Spangled Banner," to the Coke-inspired "I'd like to Teach the World to Sing."

As a sometime musician, I can tell you that (as any schoolchild knows) "The Star Spangled Banner" is a tough song to sing, and there are other patriotic songs that I would much prefer ("America the Beautiful," and "God Bless America," for two). As an unreconstructed folkie, I'd even be receptive to "This Land is Your Land," although there would be some appropriate debate upon on which of its six stanzas--some less familiar than others-- should be included. That, however, is something for a separate blog. (For the definitive word on alternate national anthems, try to get ahold of Albert Brooks's comic sketch on auditions for just such a song.) Hopefully these suggestions do not make me suspect, but at least you know where I stand. By the way, I do stand when the anthem is played. I even do so when, at Yankee -games, "God Bless America" is played during the seventh inning stretch, although there's no protocol requiring it. But, as the late Max Shulman was wont to say, I digress.

The point of my friend's sending out this e-mail blast was his concern that there had been no news coverage of the gaffe, thus "proving" the liberal conspiracy of the media. (I guess the fact that it was untrue was not a valid reason for its non-circulation.) When I wrote him about the inaccuracy of the information he was spreading (part of which stemmed from a satirical observation by a conservative critic and the rest being made up out of whole cloth), I reminded him that the revelations of Obama's former pastor not only received massive media coverage, but inspired a national address by the candidate that may have been his finest hour. That said, the one thing even President Obama's enemies grant is that he takes great care in his words, and that it would be extremely unlikely for him--or any candidate-- to say something so obviously impolitic. And, by the way, the failure to wear a lapel pin flag does not, in my humble view indicate anything about a person's patriotism. There are few more devoted New York Yankee fans than I, but I have never sported an "NY" lapel pin, and don't imagine I ever will. (Well, I might if they win the World Series again.)

My one hope, dear readers, is that e-mail recipients will follow the dictum of the late Oliver Wendell Holmes to "stop, look, and listen." In his case, it was a warning to those approaching railroad tracks. In the present instance, it is to underscore the need to not believe everything you read--whatever its source. And, more importantly, try to verify what you do read before passing it on as "proof" to others. Lastly, folks, do yourselves a favor and check those toilet bowls of your for alligators. You never know!

"Princess Leia's father dies," says obit. Who's Eddie Fisher, anyway?

For those among you, such as I, who remember popular music before the advent of rock n' roll (say '55 or '56), I'd venture a guess that few would have known who it was that Elvis Presley displaced as the number-one teen-aged heart-throb and number-one hit-maker. When I heard of Eddie Fisher's death on the radio the other night (while trying to avoid a traffic jam on the Belt Parkway), I searched my memory to see how many of his smash hits I could recall. I was only able to come up with five: "Wish You were Here," "Anytime," "Dungaree Doll," "Oh My Papa," and "I'm Walking Behind You." As with so many popular songs of the mid-50's, "Wish you Were Here," was the title song from a Broadway musical. "Anytime" was a country song (then called "Country & Western), and later covered by--are you ready--Arlo Guthrie. "Dungaree Doll" was a forgettable ditty that was Eddie's closest brush with rock n' roll. "Oh My Papa," was a tear-jerker about a son fondly remembering his dead father. It did, I must admit, bring tears to my teen-aged eyes, even though my own father was very much alive and would remain so for many years to come. Frank Sinatra covered Fisher's hit, "I'm Walking Behind You (on your wedding day)." Many people thought it was Debbie Reynolds backing Fisher on that song, but it was a woman named Sally Sweetland (yes, that Sally Sweetland). Debbie backed him (uncredited) on Irving Berlin's "A Man Chases a Girl (Until she Catches Him)." I think my mind had blocked out "Lady of Spain, a song that inspired an entire generation of accordion players.

In reading Fisher's obituary, I realized I had underestimated the extent of his success. In looking over the list of his hits, I remembered some of the songs I had forgotten: "If I Ever Needed You (I need you now)," ("You've Gotta Have) "Heart," and the folky "Cindy, oh Cindy." (Suddenly the lyrics to the long-forgotten--and forgettable--novelty song, "A Girl, a Girl" with its mock-Italian "zumbadiali-nella" refrain come rushing back like soapy dishwater.) But whether he was singing a goofy song like that, or a marvelous ballad such as Rogers and Hammerstein's "Everybody's Got a Home but me," during the six-year period of 1950-56, Eddie Fisher's presence on the pop-music scene was second to none. Putting this success in perspective is not easy when one considers how (post-Elvis) rock music eclipsed everything that preceded it.

Broadway (in "Million Dollar Quartet") is currently celebrating the seminal moment in rock history when Sun Records hosted an evening attended by the four of the founding fathers of rock n' roll: Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis. Although Elvis Presley, of course, out-paced Fisher in top ten hits, Eddie had more "top ten" and "top forty" hits than Cash, Perkins, and Lewis put together. Few people would think of Jerry Lee Lewis as following in Eddie Fisher's footsteps, but "the Killer," in fact, covered three Fisher hits: "Dungaree Doll," "I Need You Now," and (in an outtake) "Lady of Spain." Yes, music fans, you heard it here.

While the New York Times reported that Fisher had 24 number-one hits and nearly 50 in the top 40, they may have been thinking "top-ten." I was only able to come up with four number one songs and 35 in the top 20. His own publicity lists 23 top-ten hits and another 12 in the top 20, which would confirm the numbers my research revealed. Regardless, his achievements were awesome then, and would be in any era. Album sales apart, Fisher's "singles" success eclipsed no less an icon than Frank Sinatra. For those too young to remember, Eddie Fisher was a handsome version of "the boy next door, " had a mop of black wavy hair and a rich, resonant voice that was easily good enough to have graced the Broadway stage as a leading man. As it was, he headlined in Vegas, and hosted an enormously popular TV variety show called "Coke Time." Fisher (to use an expression that has virtually lost all meaning) was "clean-cut," and won the hearts of all Americans (save the broken-hearted teen-aged girls who felt jilted) when he married the "girl next door," Debbie Reynolds. They continued as "America's sweethearts," producing two children, one of whom was Carrie Fisher, who became (along with Harrison Ford) a screen idol as Princess Leia in "Star Wars." As the title of this piece suggests, an obituary from a California paper headlined, "Princess Leia's Father Dies."

Is that how he is to be remembered? If so, how did the great Eddie Fisher--once America's leading male vocalist-- attain such lasting anonymity so quickly? His hit-making was largely in eclipse in 1959 when he shocked the country by leaving Debbie for Elizabeth Taylor, widely considered the most beautiful woman in the world. This was, at the time, scandalous. Apart from some modest success with his "Games That Lovers Play" LP in 1966, Fisher was long finished as a hit-maker. For all intents and purposes, his success as a recording star had ended ten years before. That said, it is hard to find a recording artist (Elvis apart) who could have matched Fisher in popularity and commercial success. Not even "the Boss," Bruce Springsteen, had as many hit singles.

After his divorce from Elizabeth Taylor (who left him for Richard Burton), Fisher married Connie Stevens. That, too, was not free from scandal. Stevens was pregnant at the time, and it was perceived that Fisher was doing the "stand-up" thing by marrying her, and sparing her the disgrace of bearing a child out of wedlock. Just think what a non-event being unmarried and pregnant is today, and how few stars would think such an occurrence necessitated (or even merited) matrimony.

For those who (like me) delight in show-biz trivia, Eddie Fisher became the only recording artist (let me know if you can name any others) who married two women who, like him, also charted in the top ten--Debbie Reynold hit number 1 with "Tammy," and Connie Stevens had a number 3 hit with "Sixteen Reasons." As is well known, both Reynolds and Stevens had successful television and movie careers before and after their marriages to Fisher. In fact, before Connie Stevens went out on her own, she was part of a quartet called "The Foremost," who went on to be a successful trio called "The Lettermen." Debbie Reynolds, as you may know, is still performing.

Given his absence from the public eye of more than two generation, it is not surprising that Fisher's death had many people wondering, "who was this guy?" It is hard for me, who remembered Fisher attaining a popularity that few have matched, to believe the obscurity into which he faded. To be sure, his addictive personality (drugs, alcohol, and gambling) would have been enough to undo just about anyone. But his death is a better occasion to celebrate his contribution to American popular music. I would recommend both those who remember him-- as well as those who do not--to give a listen to the RCA Victor CD "Eddie Fisher-All Time Greatest Hits, Vol. 1." Perhaps the greatest tragedy to befall both Eddie and his listening public was that his personal demons encapsulated what could have been an enduring career to a very few years. Those years, however, were very good, and should live on as a fitting legacy to not only what might have been, but to what, in fact, was.

On Baseball: Let's recognize the best in each league

As the baseball season enters its final phase, and before it gives way to the increasing distractions of other sports, I have a suggestion on how to make the post-season more meaningful.

As a disclaimer, I should mention that I came of baseball-fan age in 1951, when Joe DiMaggio was in the process of handing over the prestigious center-field spot to the young "phenom," Mickey Mantle. Obviously, this meant I was used to major league baseball consisting of two leagues of eight teams each. Barring the extremely unusual occurrence of a dead-heat tie for first place--as happened in the National League that year, with (the recently deceased) Bobby Thompson's "home run heard 'round the world--the teams with the best record in their respective leagues would meet each other in the World Series. The season then consisted of 154 games (not counting the one-game playoff in the A.L., or the two-out-of-three in the N.L. as had just taken place between the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers), with a best of seven World Series. This, counting the World Series, entailed a season of (at most) 161 games, one less than the current, pre-post-season minimum.

The "October Classic," ended, at the latest, during the first week of October. The Series was all day games, and--if you were lucky enough to have the Jewish High Holy Days arrive "early," that year, young apostates such as I could "observe" by spending them glued to our radios or, television sets. And, yes, it was a kind of worship! (We did not get our first T.V. until 1952, so I was accustomed to hearing my baseball on the radio, something I continued to do on road games, which were rarely televised, for several years.)

Okay, enough history, I hear you say. Here's my proposal, and the justification for it. The best record among the Division leaders currently gets Home field advantage. While that is certainly better than nothing, it is not really a big deal. Clearly, it's scant reward for having the best record in your league. Under current rules, the teams who lead the Eastern, Western and Central divisions are guaranteed a berth in the post-season. The team that has the second-best record in the league (regardless of division) gets a "Wild Card" which gives it the right to be the fourth team in the first round of play-offs--called the "Divisional Series." As has happened all too many times, division winners may find themselves meeting the very team they edged out in their own division after a grueling 162 games (including-gasp-"interleague play") in the League Championship Series ("LCS") and conceivably lose the Pennant to a team that didn't even win its division. If the Yankees, for example, wind up winning the A.L. East, they will have done so after having played both the Rays and Red Sox about nineteen times each. Isn't that enough to relieve them of having to meet these teams again the the ALCS?

In fairness, the second-best team in the league could have (and often does have) a better record than the other two division leaders. This year, for example, the New York Yankees and the Tampa Bay Rays (formerly "Devil Rays"), have the two best records in baseball, and, arguably, each has a "right" to be in the playoffs. I don't plan on eliminating the Wild Card, much as it goes against my traditionalist grain. Luddite tendencies apart, I do to recognize that the Wild-Card race keeps seasons exciting when situations where one or more teams dominate their divisions. I can remember seasons in which teams had clinched the Pennant as early as Labor Day. The race for the Wild Card keeps the nail-biting going up to the very end. of the regular season, and this is "good for the game."

While the logic behind the Wild Card recognizes rewarding the second-best record in each of the American and National Leagues, why not provide a similar degree of recognition for the team that leads its league? Under my proposal, the team with the best record in its league would get a "bye" in the Divisional Series, and play the winner of the two (yes, two) best 3 of 5 divisional series in the best of seven LDS. Here's how it would work. Let's assume teams A, B, and C are the division leaders in their leagues, with team A having the best record in the league. I would award two "Wild Cards" to the teams with the two best records in their league (who nonetheless failed to win their division). Call them teams D and E. The Division leader with the stronger record (team B) would play the "Wild Card" team with the weaker record of the Wild-Card teams (team E). The other division leader (team C) would play the stronger of the Wild-Card teams (team D). NB: I am, in each instance, recognizing "also-ran" teams with the better "league" records and balancing them against the divisional leaders, thus preserving the concept of winning one's division.

So, let's assume teams B and E win their first-round DS. They then play another 3 of 5 DS for the right to play the team with the best record in their league(a team that years ago would already have won the pennant) . Let's assume both DS's go the maximum five games, and the LDS goes seven games. Admittedly, that's a possible seventeen games just to get into the World Series. Add that to the 162-game season and you could be looking at 179 games before the World Series--putting us well into November, and not a good thing. My proposed solution would be to revert to the time-honored 154-game schedule (of blessed memory). Now you would have a post-season (for some teams) of up to twenty-three games. With my regular season now ending by, say, September 20th, you'd have plenty of time for the additional round of playoffs. Lest anyone think the league-leaders have a picnic, they would still have a best-of -seven series to win in order to get to the World Series, and, of course, an additional best-of -seven in the Series itself. If they have it somewhat easier than the others, they earned it by being the best in their leagues. The other four teams have to earn the right to play them. So, what do you think, sports fans?

(By the way, if this is deemed to cumbersome, why not abandon the Wild Card entirely, and let the division leaders with the second and third best records play each other in a four out of seven round. The winner of of this DS would then get to play the best team in its league for the pennant. While I prefer this solution, I understand that the Wild Card is here to stay, and have thus proposed the above as the most realistic solution.)

George M. Steinbrenner--the Boss we deserve?

By now, there has been so much written about the passing of George Steinbrenner, there is little I can add other than some personal observations. The commentary--which has been extraordinarily extensive for someone who neither played nor managed--has ranged from near-deification to gratuitous George-bashing. Some--for reasons that are beyond me--are calling for Cooperstown to suspend its normal five-year waiting list and induct him ASAP. Others are only too happy to speak ill of the dead (the good once again being interred with their bones). That his death came within two days of another Yankee legend, P.A. announcer Bob Sheppard, somehow seemed more synchronicity than mere coincidence.

The staid New York Times devoted more ink to his death than that which usually accompanies a head of state. Its editorial page, however, damned him with their patented faint praise ("He's not the owner we would have chosen. Whether he's the owner we deserved is another question."). While editorials are not expected to be objective, there is something a bit disingenuous about a New York paper that has an ownership interest in the Boston Red Sox (as Casey used to say, "you could look it up") positioning itself so high above the people who provide its main source of readership. Does Boston, for example "deserve" the Red Sox? Does the District of Columbia "deserve" the Nationals. And, with pain that continues 'lo these more than fifty years, didn't Brooklyn deserve the Dodgers, and Manhattan the Giants? What I found interesting about the Times's line is how the editors separated themselves from the rest of New York--while they would not have chosen him, New Yorkers (presumably due to their not measuring up to the standards of the country's "newspaper of record") got what we (the great unwashed) deserved.

While Mr. Steinbrenner had a number of questionable traits (yes, he could be a bully, and yes, firing Yankee legend Yogi Berra after only a few games into the season as manager, and having Dave Winfield tailed the way he did were but a few of his less than exemplary activities), what, indeed does New York deserve in a team? Taking the period within my recall (as a "man of a certain age"), we New Yorkers have come to expect a World Championship team--maybe not every year-- but often enough to be disappointed when it doesn't happen for, say, a few years. If no other city could reasonably harbor such expectations, there is--let's face it--no other city that quite compares to New York. When Steinbrenner took over the Yankees in 1973, the team had been suffering from an unusually long (for them) drought. In what were, perhaps unfairly, called the "Horace Clark years," the Yankees had won their last world championship in 1963, their last pennant in 1964. Within three years, the American League pennant proudly flew over Yankee Stadium, and for the following two years, the world championship flag. Not bad for a ship-builder from Cleveland, eh?

One of my closest friends (a devoted Yankee fan) hated "the Boss," and was once photographed on the cover of the New York Daily News (with me, seated next to him smiling beatifically under my Yankees' cap) standing proudly in a t-shirt featuring a circle with a diagonal line crossing the name "George." I think this was in recognition of the Yogi firing, but he did ultimately apologize to Berra. My friend--a charitable sort--has since forgiven Steinbrenner his shortcomings. When "the Boss" took some heat for criticizing the beloved Yankee captain, Derek Jeter, for spending "too many nights on the town," his response was to participate in a TV commercial recreating the criticism, only to be followed by the two of them joined in a conga-line. Ridiculous as his multiple hirings and firings of Billy Martin were, he did allow them to be parodied in a beer commercial with Martin. And no, I don't think he needed the money. He also gave (initially grudging) permission to being represented in an on-going "role" on Seinfeld, in which the Steinbrenner character was repeatedly featured harassing a beleagured George Costanza. So yes, the man took himself seriously, but not so seriously as to not invite a laugh or two at his own expense. Would that the New York Times could find occasion to poke fun of itself in such a way. One lives in hope.

I will not dwell on his charitable activities, other than to say they were many, and not all were publicized.

I was fortunate to have met Mr. Steinbrenner on several occasions. The first was purely social, a day on which we each had sons entering the freshman class at Williams College. In a few minutes of one-on-one discussion, I found him to be friendly, charming and gracious. In addition, he possessed an

open and engaging sense of humor. The ensuing times were all business. I was a lawyer for an investment bank representing the Yankees in their desire to improve (or move to a new ) Yankee Stadium. It was 1996, and he was still very much the hands-on "boss" of legend. While respectful to us, he tended to bully his hapless CFO, and was clearly not someone who ruled by consensus. That said, he was keenly interested in preserving the Yankee tradition, and wanted to stay in New York. Those of us working on the project were treated to seats in the Yankee box for one each of the '96 ALDS, ALCS, and World Series games. Sitting next to Mr. October (Reggie Jackson) was quite a treat for an aging New York kid whose last (and only) World Series game was forty years before!

Looking back on those negotiations (which were then in their infancy), Mr. Steinbrenner's concerns about the future of the South Bronx and the old Stadium were not unfair. That he lived to see the Yankees stay at their cherished address on 161st Street and River Avenue and win the World Series in their first year in the new Stadium (and its first since 9/11) was a crowning achievement that he and, yes, New York very much deserved.

The Tennis Marathon: 5th Set: Isner 70-Mahut 68

It ended on my birthday, June 24, 2010. As I began the count-down to closing in on my own sixties, so 23rd-seeded John Isner and qualifier Nicholas Mahut were deadlocked 68-68, in the 5th set of a marathon match so long that the game score looked like a typo.

Indeed, when my older son, Jason, called me from a meeting on the 22d to say, just turn on Wimbledon, I thought that 30-30 was the score in the game being played, and not the score in games! As a long-time tennis fan and player, the longest set I recall playing was either 12-10 or 11-9 and that seemed an eternity! As a spectator, I have always delighted in watching the Grand Slam matches ever since attending the (then amateur) U.S. National Championships at Forest Hills. With each passing year, I have marveled at the increased skill that the players bring to their games. While a great deal of this is attributed to racquet technology, there is no question that the overall skill level is much higher than years ago. If you doubt this, just take a look at some of the great matches from, say, thirty years ago. There was some great shot-making to be sure, but the pace almost looks like slow-motion. Watching, for example, the women's final in the French Open, Mmes. Stosur and Schiavonne were belting the ball at a pace that would have been worthy of a men's match not too long ago. (It would be interesting--just for fun-- to see today's players compete with wood racquets just to see what it looked like.)

Getting back to the Isner-Mahut match, one has to think back to some of the long matches from years ago to fully appreciate how extraordinary Isner-Mahut really was. One watershed event was the Wimbledon match in 1969 between the 41-year-old lion, Richard "Pancho" Gonzalez and Chuck Passerell. This, too, played out over more than one-day, with Pancho emerging the victor in a five-setter that seemed to test the endurance of both fans and players alike. It would have been easy for Gonzales to be discouraged after dropping the first set, 22-24. For sure, that would have been more than enough for me to throw in the towel. Certainly this discouragement seemed evident when he dropped the second set 1-6. Like Mahut, Pancho complained about the encroaching darkness. Somehow Gonzales was able to regroup, and won the third set 16-14. He evened it up with a 6-3 win in the fourth, and overcame a number of match points to win 11-9. This incredibly long match was all the impetus the then-new Open era needed to adopt (one of) Jimmy Van Allen's recommended scoring modifications. The 1970 U.S. Open introduced the tie-breaker (or "tie-break" as it is officially known), initially as a first to reach five points when a set was tied 8-8. Soon thereafter, it assumed its present role at 6-6, as a seven-point tie-breaker (provided you win by two-points). Now, the tie-breaker at 6-6 is universal, except in the deciding set at Grand Slams other than the U.S. Open, which retains the tie-breaker in all circumstances.

We have, of course, have had some memorable tie-breakers. Easily, the most famous of these was in the fourth set of the gentlemen's finals at Wimbledon between Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe. McEnroe won that showdown 18-16, the equivalent of five full games. Borg, however, went on to win the match in the decisive 5th set.

Just last year, Wimbledon provided high drama in the final match between Roger Federer and Andy Roddick. With the 5th set deadlocked at 6-all, the rules required that the winner win by two games. The two traded games until the sensational Federer finally outlasted the equally marvelous efforts of Roddick to win 16-14. Unlike the 18-16 tie-breaker (which was "only" points), that 5th set which gave Federer the all-time Grand-Slam edge over Pete Sampras, was a full thirty games--the equivalent of almost three (additional) close sets.

All these great endurance contests pale, now and (one can safely say) forever in the wake of the Isner-Mahut iron-man ultra-marathon. Played over three days, the two traded "normal" sets of 6-4 (Isner) and 6-3 (Mahut). They then warmed up by trading two tie-breakers, 6-7 (7) Mahut and 7-6 (3) Isner. Two days later, it was finally over, with Isner, after overcoming a 0-30 deficit at 68-all, reeled off four consecutive points to hold. I remembered thinking that Mahut would find it hard to overcome the love-thirty lead he had--apparently (and incredibly), the first time that set someone other than the server had won two consecutive points.

For those of you that saw the end of the match, Isner reeled off the last two points in remarkable fashion. On the next to last point, Mahut pinned Isner to the baseline, only to watch his 6-9 opponent hit an inside-out half-volley forehand winner down the line. The match point winner was a down-the-line backhand that Mahut could only watch sail past him.

One of the wonderful things about tennis--absent the tie-breaker--is that, like baseball, there is no time limit. The longest baseball game ever played was twenty-six innings, and that was nearly a century ago. Twenty inning games, while rare, do occur. The New York Mets won just such a game this season. Given the nine-inning standard, 26-innings is just under three-full games, a ridiculously long time to be playing baseball. Just to put the Isner-Mahut match in perspective (and figuring a normally long five-set match would be fifty games; i.e. 6-4, 4-6, 6-4, 4-6, 6-4, or 26 games to 24 ) their last set alone--at 138 games--was equal to thirteen 6-4 sets, plus a fourteenth deadlocked at 4-4. One can't even imagine a baseball game lasting eleven hours.

By the way, remember that Gonzales-Passerell match--you know--the one that brought on the tie-breaker? That match lasted 112 games, an enormous amount to be sure. When viewed against the 138 games it took to complete the Isner-Mahut fifth-set, it looks like a friendly game of Sunday doubles.

So tear up your record books fans, this one is here to stay. and what a birthday present for this aging tennis buff!

Israel and the Taliban: double standard?

I read today of the horrible loss of life in Afghanistan at a wedding celebration. Forty people were murdered, including men, women and children of all ages. This got me thinking about Israel's naval blockade of Gaza and what comparison, if any, may be made between the two acts.

There has been much written recently--and properly so--about the botched boarding of a vessel attempting to breach the naval blockade which Israel established three years ago to interdict the delivery of certain materials to Gaza. Unfortunately, this resulted in the loss of nine lives. What is not clear is the degree to which Israel overreacted to the resistance they faced in boarding and taking control of that vessel. What is clear is that the ships stopped were challenging the blockade in hopes of raising the international focus on the situation in Gaza in general, and the legitimacy of the blockade in particular. That they succeeded in the court of public opinion seems beyond debate. Lost in the debate, however, is what a naval blockade is, and what are the risks inherent in testing it. Running a naval blockade, after all, is not like marching on the Pentagon.

Countries around the world (including the United States) have differed only in the degree to which they are critical of the blockade and the recent loss of life. While lip service has been given to the importance of Israel's security interests in the general sense, few have viewed the naval blockade of Gaza as being a legitimate means of safeguarding those interests. Over the ensuing weeks, various forums will debate the degree to which (a) the blockade is a legitimate function of Israel's security interests (something unlikely to provoke the same degree of concern when practiced by other countries), (b) whether or not their deadly reaction to the testing of the blockade was provoked, and (c) if so, was their reaction proportionate. So far, public opinion seems to have determined that Israel was at fault on (a) and (c), with (b) while yet to be determined, something of far lower priority.

Needless to say, issues like this arise whenever a country, its army or police force act in ways that result in the loss of human life. As a young man in the 60's, I can recall how strategies (both non-violent and otherwise) were designed to test the reaction of the police powers of states. Truly, the cause of civil rights and the anti-Vietnam-war movement were furthered by such tests. But, as mentioned above, a naval blockade is not an appropriate "forum" for such a test.

Turning to the suicide bombing of the wedding in Afghanistan, we are faced with a very different set of circumstances. This, mind you, was not a battle, let alone a blockade: it was an attack. The reason for this carnage appears to be the groom's membership in an anti-Taliban militia. The perpetrator, while presently unknown, appears to have been acting at the behest of the Taliban. (If I turn out to be wrong about this, I apologize in advance.) The Taliban, of course, is not a sovereign nation (although it once ruled Afghanistan and thought its approach not only legitimate, but the only way in which the country should have been run.) You may recall that (under its rule) secular music was forbidden, women were required to be covered from head to toe and to cease working outside the home. As for religious tolerance (or the lack thereof) remember the destruction of a giant statue of Buddha that had stood for centuries? Not exactly a beacon of enlightenment.

While supporters of, and apologists for, the Taliban may justify the attack at the wedding, most of the civilized world will disapprove in various degrees of expression. Indeed, many will recoil in horror. I wonder, however, how many who currently nurture contacts with the Taliban will react. How, in fact, will Islam react, and how will it make its feelings known?

Will there be a call for an international investigation? To what extent will Islam distance itself from this and all such acts? So far, the press coverage--at least in comparison to the Israeli blockade of Gaza--has been muted. Perhaps there is the assumption (both stated and implicit) that more is expected of Israel than the Taliban (one our ally, the other a sworn foe). And, of course, we should expect more from a sovereign nation, than a terrorist insurgency. Unfortunately, history is replete with sovereign nations acting themselves as terrorists. Distinctions between Israel and the Taliban notwithstanding--anyone criticizing Israel for its actions in the blockade should be up in arms over the atrocity perpetrated upon wedding-goers, whose only crime was opposing a totalitarian force dedicated, it would appear, to the eradication of both freedom and joy. The two acts differ not only in degree, but in kind.

Accordingly, we should look carefully at the public reaction to this wanton attack. It will be interesting to see who speaks up, and to what degree. More interesting will be those who don't say a word. To the extent that some who have been most vocal in their denunciation of Israel remain silent in the face of this unprovoked evil, it would be fair to ask what they really stand for. This is not meant to either excuse or defend Israel, nor does it mean that Israel, or any other country with whom we deal, should be free from criticism. As a free nation, we reserve the right--and frequently exercise it--to criticize ourselves. It is merely a question I pose to the "opinion makers" (public and otherwise). Is evil immutable or situational? Can you condemn Israel in the defense of its sovereignty, while ignoring (or minimizing the significance of) a cowardly act of unspeakable horror? Perhaps, once again, it depends on whose ox is getting gored.

"The 'Big Six' Reunion

On April 25-26, five of my closest friends from high school days and I had a 50+year reunion. Of the six of us, three of us knew each other from Joan of Arc Junior High School (JHS 118, circa 1953), and, of the other three, two met at the nearby Booker T. Washington JHS, while another two met in the second grade (1948). Maybe a better way of parsing this would be to say that the latest that all six of us knew each other dates back to 1955. As such, we are--by almost any measurement--old friends.

I'll use first names only, since (a) each of us knows who we are, and (b) the rest of you are unlikely to care. We are, in no particular order, Ray, Vic, Henry, Gene, Mike and John. The reunion was Ray's idea. Ray has lived in Israel for many years, and has been married to the same woman, Janine, for over forty-five years. They have three children and eight grandchildren. Ray is strikingly handsome in a Warren Beatty sort of way, and--replete with a full head of white hair--is hale, healthy and fit. He is an engineer, and has a large number of people in his employ, including Israeli Arabs as well as Jews.

The other expat is Vic, who grew up a few blocks from me on Manhattan's Upper West Side and lives in Italy, where he holds a senior position with an international news organization. I'll never forget his first scoop as a young reporter. He somehow convinced the reclusive Svetlana Alaluyeva to give him an interview. She was better known as Stalin's daughter, and the interview itself was news. Of the six of us, Vic is the only one who still smokes cigarettes--unfiltered yet--something all too evident in his raspy voice. At one time, we all smoked, although Ray, as I recall, was the only one to smoke a pipe. Starting out with the extra-mild King Sano, graduating to Kent, and finally becoming Marlboro men, we mostly stopped smoking in our mid-twenties. But, as some of you may remember, it was unusual back then not to smoke.

While Vic, Mike and I all attended the same Junior High, I didn't really get to know Vic until the 9th grade by which time each of us were attending different high schools. Mike, Henry, Gene and I all left junior high after the 8th grade to attend the High School of Music & Art. Ray went to Stuyvesant, and Vic, after a year at Brooklyn Tech (something I didn't remember until the reunion) left to attend the Franklin School, a private school in Manhattan.

Mike and I met in junior high in a schoolyard fight that started with insults (mainly reflections on each other's incipient manhood, lack of courage, and sexual orientation), led to shoving and, happily, little more. After that, we became fast friends. Since he lived just up the block from me, we spent a lot of time at each other's apartments. Mike introduced me to Vic as well, and soon we were all hanging out. Mike's father was a dentist, while both Vic's father and mine were lawyers. My father specialized in international law and Vic's in literary property and civil liberties law. As libidinous teen-agers, we were thankful, to a boy, for Vic's father's role in allowing all America to read "Lady Chatterley's Lover" in (at last) unexpurgated form. (Vic, while still a young man, was later to lose his father in a senseless mugging, something which shocked us all.)

As mentioned above, Gene, Henry, Mike and I met as high school freshman. Since Mike & Vic and Henry & Ray were already friends, they were quickly integrated into our little clique. Because girls, at this point, were largely a pipe dream (wet or otherwise), we were able to devote our copious spare time to honing our smoking and poker-playing skills. In the interest of full disclosure, Ray was the earliest and most successful of our group in attracting girls. This, however, inspired more admiration than jealousy, as he was never boastful in that regard. The rest of us were quite modest about our conquests, and with good cause. (I remember our once collectively visiting a hooker--Carmen by name--and, after dickering over price, only one of us chose to meet her $10 price at the expense of his virginity. It was not me, and that's all I the identification I will provide. The rest of us were able to brag that "we never paid for it." (For a while, that was to prove an empty boast, since none other of us was to get "it" free or otherwise, for several years to come.)

Ray and Gene's parents both came from immigrant backgrounds, Ray's came from Eastern Europe by way of France and Gene's from Russia. Both Ray's father and Gene's mother and step-father were in the jewelry business. None of us was an only child, although, apart from Ray's younger brother and Mike's younger sister, the other four of us all had older siblings. Henry was the youngest of three brothers, and lived with his mother, who not only was in the furniture business, but the person to whom I turned when my wife Riki and I were furnishing our first home. While some might challenge our "retro" sense of style, we still utilize some of the things we bought many years ago. Henry was the only one of the bunch who came from what was then called "a broken home." After leaving Henry's mother and children, he continued to visit his sons on weekly basis for a few years. By the time I met Henry, at age fourteen, his father (by what seems to have been mutual consent) had long ceased having contact with his children. Henry's late mother, Lillian, was a strong and fine woman, who, in addition to running a furniture business, looked after her sons with love and devotion. Although my parents were married, my father's international law practice kept him abroad for several months of the year. As such, I understood (at least in part) the heavy burden a mother faced in raising a family on her own. Friday evening chicken dinners with Henry, his mother and two brothers (prepared by their gruff maid, Ivy) were a welcome tradition in which I was frequently fortunate to participate.

Henry and I were in the same "official class," and quickly bonded. While there were always shifting alliances, we became best friends, much in the way Mike and Vic were. But, given the adolescent nature of always jockeying for position ("my turn to walk in the middle"), there were times throughout high school when each of us had "special relationships" with others, which usually enabled us to gossip about those not present. Gene had an older brother, Alex, who was a couple of years ahead of us at Stuyvesant and, as such, bigger, tougher (an easy one) and cooler (equally easy).

Henry had two older brothers, one of whom--though short-- was a star basketball player in high school. (In one of life's many ironies, Henry was, by far, the tallest of the three brothers, and limited his basketball contacts to being assistant manager of our high school team.) Although Music & Art had no fencing team, Gene later joined his older brother, Alex, on the fencing team at NYU (along with Neil Diamond, who was to go on to musical stardom). Ray was also a varsity fencer at City College, one year winning the national saber competition. It must have been in their European blood. Needless to say, whatever our petty differences, none of the rest of us ever challenged either Ray or Gene to a duel. Differences were, more often than not, resolved by "choosing" (i.e. "once, twice, three, shoot!")

Vic and Mike were also good athletes. Although I was the only one of us to "letter" in tennis in high school and college, both Vic and Mike were good tennis players. We used to play tennis in Central Park's public courts, and frequently play pick-up basketball in the 79th street playground on Riverside Drive. Our favorite indoor sport was unquestionably table tennis, which we played on the table my father had been cajoled into permitting me to have in my room. While this left room for little else than my bed and a (largely unused) desk, it seemed a worthwhile "sacrifice."

Gene and Henry (unlike Vic, Mike and I) hit their growth spurts early, and were six-footers by the time they were sixteen. They were both handsome guys, and used to argue about which of them more closely resembled Ricky Nelson (the heartthrob son of television's Ozzie & Harriet). In fact, neither of them looked remotely like Ricky, but they did fine looking just as they did. We were (he says modestly) a good-looking bunch, although, as indicated above, that was not validated by an early rash of social successes.

For reasons I still cannot understand (apart from his living above 100th street), I do not recall ever having been in Gene's apartment. The last time I had seen Gene (prior to the reunion) was at his wedding, thirty-three years ago. Although Gene was partially Jewish (his brother, Alex, was bar-mitzpha'd, and actually lived in Israel for a couple of years), Gene had no apparent religious identity, and later married a woman in an elaborately Christian ceremony, in which his new mother-in-law recruited the balance of the big six to stand by the pulpit and loudly lead the congregation in the singing of Christian hymns. With Mike half-Jewish and the rest of us completely so (lapsed or otherwise), we were odd choices for such a choir. Although I had no recollection of it, Gene mentioned at the reunion that this was not only his second marriage, but that my father had handled the divorce from his short marriage. While Henry was also on his second marriage (his divorce being the first case I, sadly, handled as a newly-minted lawyer in 1972), each of the big six has been married (Henry included) for over thirty years, with three of us, much longer. Given the dismal national statistics, this should stand as our signal collective achievement. As for children, Ray Vic, Henry and Mike each had three three (In Vic's case, his oldest child tragically died many years ago in a terrorist attack in Europe). Gene and I have two each, and Mike, Ray and I are each grandparents, several times over. Vic's son, who runs a large soccer-related website, joined us for dinner and enjoyed being with his father's old friend. Henry's youngest child, though confined to a wheelchair due to cerebral palsy, joined us as well, and had a very good time.

College more or less split us up, as it has a way of doing. While Gene started college at George Washington and Mike at Upsala, they later transferred to NYU, where Henry was already a student. Ray did his undergraduate work at City College, and got his master's at Columbia. Vic and I had both gotten into Hobart, but I decided to opt for Alfred University in upstate New York based less on academic reasons (heaven forbid!) than the easier possibility of making a varsity team (which wasn't as difficult as it would have been at bigger schools). Hobart and Alfred were close enough for Vic and I to visit each other frequently, and he once floated me an interest-free $80 loan to help out with a portion of a poker debt that already had me waiting on tables at my college fraternity. That and Vic's loan spared me having to tell my father (who--as it turned out--would have understood better than I would have then suspected) of my dissolute ways. It was, happily, the last such indebtedness I was to endure, and for that, I remain indebted to Vic.

You might wonder (I know I did) what it was like seeing these once inseparable friends after so many years. Although Henry and I have stayed in reasonably close touch (once or twice a year), I hadn't seen Michael, Ray, or Vic for at least ten years (our last reunion) and Gene, about twenty-five years ago, at a still earlier reunion. Apart from Henry and me, neither Gene nor Michael had (to my knowledge) ever attended a high school reunion. Interestingly, Vic and I had an odd falling out many years ago. While neither he nor I were parties to it, something was apparently said between our wives (of which my wife has only a guess), which resulted in us only seeing each other in reunions organized by others. That said, we had a very good time together during this reunion, and I think have buried whatever hatchet may have existed in the past. Vic, by the way, and I were counselors at the same summer camp where I met my wife, Riki, and I was able to share some old camp pictures with him.

As with camp, each of us had special connections shared only with one other person. Vic and Henry enlisted in the Army reserves together (the so-called "six month deal" in which one's short stretch of active duty was followed by five and a half years as once a week reservists). While Ray served in the Israeli army, Mike married early, and was draft-exempt under the "Kennedy rule" then in effect. Gene spent two years in the Army as a writer for "Stars & Stripes," and afterwards became a writer for an aviation magazine. The rest of us nurtured our very own "urban legend" that he was in the CIA. I wound up serving a four-year (count-'em) hitch in the Air Force as an officer, which is something for another blog.

As for weddings, while we all went to Gene's, the rest were only sparsely attended. I think Mike got married in a private family ceremony. I went to both of Henry's weddings. He was best man at my wedding, and Vic (who, as mentioned above, was friendly with both Riki and me) was an usher at mine. Vic got married abroad with Gene and Mike in attendance and Ray, I think, was overseas and married prior to 1965.

Of the six of us, Henry and Gene are the only ones fully retired. Ray and Vic, as mentioned earlier, are still working full-time. Mike and his wife, Eileen, have largely retired from her family's packaging business, but still consult. In addition, their downtown loft (where we had the Sunday part of our reunion) reflects much of the extensive art collection that they have amassed over the years. In addition to all kinds of works of art on display, they have a large collection of museum quality masks and photographs. Considering that four of us were once art students, it is nice to see that at least one of us has devoted much of his spare time to keeping the flame alive. I retired from a career as a corporate and securities lawyer in 2008, and continue to do some legal consulting, blogging, and indulging my log-time love for folk music as a singer/songwriter (see www.folklawproductions.com). In addition, I continue to love playing tennis, something I hope to do as long as I am ambulatory (so far, so good).

As for health, the only major issue of which I am aware among the big six was Gene's having had a multiple by-pass a few years ago. That said, although his once red hair is thinner and whiter and his face-full of freckles have long-since vanished, he looks terrific. Henry and Ray both have full heads of white hair and remain handsome and healthy-looking. Mike has lost some hair, but remains trim and otherwise looks much as he did. Only Vic, who always had a wiry and athletic physique has developed a bit of a paunch. Along with me (and I appreciate the company), he is the only one among us to still drink hard liquor. Perhaps the others know something we don't--or vice-versa.

The reunion was great, and it is surprising how little we have actually changed. I had gone to it with somewhat ambivalent feelings, all of which vanished within minutes of seeing my old chums. I think my mixed feelings stemmed from my recollections of a time in which we all were struggling with what were then called "growing pains." It is, as you doubtless know, difficult being a young man of fifteen. As Mike correctly said to me in a post-reunion e-mail, we are older, but the same. I reminded him of (our contemporary) Paul Simon's stanza from a version of "The Boxer" that he reserves for live performances--"...it isn't strange, after changes upon changes, we are more or less the same; after changes, we're more or less the same." That proved to be true for the six of us, and--I believe--all to the good.

"On Finally Reading 'Atlas Shrugged'"

I know; "Atlas Shrugged" is something one should have read before the age of twenty-one, and then thinking, at least until you reached your senses, that the book contained all the answers to the world's ills. Well, I'm several times twenty-one, and amidst queries of "why are you bothering?" from friends and family, I plowed on through--count em'-- all 1074 pages of it. (The fine print in the paperback is, by the way, a challenge to these late-middle aged eyes.) So what am I doing, not only reading, but writing about the experience? For one thing, I think the recent movie, "The Passion of Ayn Rand," starring the superb Helen Mirren, provided the most direct inspiration. Much of the film takes place during the writing of "Atlas Shrugged."

Miss Rand was an extraordinary woman--very much her own person, whose life reflected rules written mostly by herself. For her, there was right and wrong, and any compromise between the two was even worse than being wrong. There was, however, a certain subjectivity to her own Objectivism. Marriage, for example, may have been a decent enough convention for the rank and file, but never one that should have posed an impediment to an honest extra-marital relationship fueled by passion. (Perhaps the proponents of "Open Marriage" in the '70's were, consciously or not, influenced by her.) To her credit, unlike some other figures from history, she never claimed that any of her actions were divinely inspired or revealed, but took full responsibility for her words and deeds.

While the "expert panel" which selected the "Best Books of the 20th Century," did not choose to acknowledge Ayn Rand's magnum opus, in its hot 100, the readers' poll conducted by them certainly thought it belonged on such a list. Like it or not, few would gainsay the significance of "Atlas." Indeed, it was recently ranked number 33 on the Amazon best-seller list, not bad for a book written in 1957. Although the New York Times Book Review panned it (and thought it fueled "by hate"), young Alan Greenspan (an early adherent of Objectivism and the invariable wisdom of the free market), quickly took issue with their review. Many may have since disagreed with Miss Rand's philosophy, even reviled it, but no one could ignore the book that embodied it. (By the way, Rand never embraced the honorific "Ms.," so I'll stick with the quainter "Miss" that she used professionally, as well as throughout her long, if unconventional, marriage.)

I first became aware of the book while in high school. It had just come out, and was all the rage. Graffito of "Who is John Galt?" appeared on many a subway wall and even a schoolmate running for class president co-opted the phrase ( "Who is Jim Silk?") as a campaign slogan. At the time, caring teen-aged liberals like myself began wondering if, perhaps, it was not only okay to give in to our selfish instincts once in a while, but downright desirable. (By the way, the phrase, "who is John Galt," is used in the book as if to say, "that's just the way things are," or "you can't fight City Hall.")

While I did read "The Fountainhead" (Miss Rand's warm-up to "Atlas Shrugged") some time ago and enjoyed both it and the Gary Cooper/Patricia Neal film, I did not begin "Atlas" until last year. What always intrigued me about Objectivism was (a) it was frowned upon by liberals and conservatives alike, and (b) most people are--to varying degrees--selfish, although reluctant to publicly proclaim it. (I suspect many of us embrace it like a secret, but forbidden, religion.)

As a young Air Force Lieutenant back in the 60's, I met a fellow officer who, along with his wife, were Objectivists. (A propos of nothing, they were also early supporters of McDonald's hamburgers, and rarely cooked at home.) Fred (that being his name) and I became not only friends, but were members of a couple of trios during the "folk craze" of the mid-60's. Fred played a mean 12-string guitar, and was a good guy who could sing both lead and harmony, so we got along fine. There was nothing about his philosophy that would have been noticed by someone not knowing he professed it. After all, Objectivists are free to choose what they do, and be friendly, even generous, if that is their desire. Fred was both friendly and generous to me, and I hope he felt I (the selfless one) was the same toward him. As for his taste in hamburgers, I express no opinion.

Consistent with the Objectivist credo, Fred and his wife believed in a very limited government role; i.e., national defense, police, fire and sanitation support, but not much more. Income taxes and things like Social Security, not to mention Welfare, were verboten. I do recall observing to Fred that the Air Force had about as much socialized medicine as one could imagine. He may not have agreed with my characterization, but I, for one, appreciated the fact that our first son, Jason, cost us precisely $6; the price of my wife's meals while at the base hospital.

As for "Atlas Shrugged," the author makes her points over and over (and over) again. The main point of the book seems to me to be that mankind's progress is achieved through initiative, which functions best when allowed to freely flourish. This means (with rare exceptions) zero governmental regulation. (Lest we face an Objectivist Hell, I hope the exceptions always extend to food & drug laws, as well as traffic lights, and garbage pick-ups. )

The protagonists of the book (and there are several) include Dagny Taggart (a pre-feminist industrialist, scornful of bureaucracies, unions, and weak men), James Taggart (her weakling brother and nominal boss at Taggart Transcontinental, the family-founded railroad he--over Dagny's dead body-- is perfectly prepared to run into the ground), and Hank Reardon, (handsome, strong-willed, single-minded of purpose, and creator of Reardon Metal, a better-than-steel product, and supporter of his parasitic wife, brother and mother). Oh yeah, Hank is (one of) Dagny's lover(s)--in the language of the day--his mistress. Another main character, Francisco D'Anconio, is the scion to a great South American Copper fortune, a former lover of Dagny, and a (seeming) turncoat to the cause of industrial power and independence. Francisco, much to Dagny's dismay and Hank's disgust, seemingly lives the life of a playboy, happy to erode the fortune his father built and that he, once, long ago, helped to expand. Last, but hardly least, is the eponymous John Galt, who has disappeared from the public at large and established a hidden capitalist commune (I know, the phrase does sound oxymoronic) deep in the valleys of Colorado. He has been joined by a disenchanted band of brothers, consisting, of, among others, a couple of big-business types who have had it up to here with government intrusion, a composer, a judge, a professor, and--now it can be told--Francisco D'Anconia, who is secretly part of the commune and a fifth columnist in the decadent outside world. The goal of what is charmingly called "Galt's Gulch," is to live by their cherished values until things get so bad on the outside that they will be able to resume their separate roles in a new America with a very limited central government. ( I know this sounds subversive, but think of the state "withering away.")

Oh, I almost forgot one guy--there's an honest to goodness pirate (and saboteur) named Ragnar Danneksjold who robs from the (bad) rich and gives to the (good) rich. While he describes himself as a kind of reverse Robin Hood who robs from the poor and gives to the rich, in fairness to both him and the author, the "rich" from whom he robs are the governments who have "looted" their own citizens and are hell-bent on redistributing their money to "needy" "People's States" the world over.

By the way, the world of Atlas Shrugged takes place in the indefinite future, and is inhabited by America (which is on the wane) and the aforementioned "People's States" of Europe and Asia, which have already arrived where the U.S. of A is headed unless John Galt and his posse can come to the rescue. The book has a touch of science-fiction to it, including the best that modern (governmental) science can come up with -- a sonic ray that disintegrates everything in its tracks, a revolutionary motor invented (and destroyed) by John Galt, and some pretty ingenious torture devices later used in an attempt to break him. Oh, remember how I mentioned that Dagny had been involved with both Francisco and and Hank? Although they both love her as deeply as their selfishness allows, they are selfless enough to step aside for the one man even more worthy of her love than they. If you're thinking John Galt, go to the head of the (industrialist) class.

There is, of course, a supporting cast of characters, and they are almost to a man, as loathsome as their Dickensian names suggest: Wesley Mouch, Balph (yes, with a "B") Eubanks, the thuggish Cuffy Meigs, Claude Slagenhop, a Mr. Balch, and Ben Nealy (think "Kneely"). Lest you mistakenly think well of him, Miss Rand describes Mr. Neely as a "bulky man with a soft, sullen face" whose skin "in the soft bluish light had the tinge of butter." Would you buy a used country from such a man?

The heroes, to a man, (and, yes, they are all men) get much better names. Oddly, the hero, John Galt, does call to mind the word "gall" (and "Gaul"), which is not usually a compliment, but he certainly had gall in the minds of his country's misguided leader to refuse to cave in to their demands of compromise. Remember, one man's gall is another man's backbone.

So what, some fifty-three years after its publication, does one take away from the book and its impact? As I reflect on the counter-cultural 60's in which I came of age, I'm surprised to examine how well much of the the "new left's" doctrines comported with Objectivism. Forgetting the great economic divide between capitalism and socialism (and, admittedly, that's a lot to forget), both were anti-big government, anti-institutional, unconventional in their loving arrangements ("open marriage," "free love," etc.), living arrangements ("Galt's Gulch"), atheism, and--lest we forget--selfishness. (Even the tribal rock musical "Hair" bemoaned, in the song "Easy to be Hard," the lack of sensitivity of one of their own: "how can People be so heartless?" When the song went on to ask "do you only care about the bleeding crowd, how about a needing friend?" it certainly reminded me of a few of the selfish lefties I have known and, occasionally, loved. I think they owe more of a debt to Miss Rand than they are willing to acknowledge. Oddly enough--despite their opposite views on obligations to society at large--I have found conservatives to be more caring and, yes, selfless, on a one-to-one basis than their liberal counterparts. (This, of course, is purely my anecdotal impression, and is something supported by neither science nor reason.)

The internet tells of the numerous efforts to turn "Atlas" into either a feature film or mini-series. If properly cast and edited, it could make for a good story. Leading ladies as prominent as the late Farah Fawcett, Julia Roberts, Angelina Jolie, and, most recently, Charlize Theron, have all expressed interest in the character of Dagny. Let's face it, she is a great character, a beautiful, smart, courageous woman, looking only for a man strong enough to conquer her. In her affair with Hank Reardon, she is able to look beyond his (admittedly empty) marriage and become his mistress (something he later conceals in order to protect her image and for which he signs his company away in return), she proudly admits to in an live interview, rather than be an apologist for the corrupt and crumbling government.

While it is convenient to pigeon-hole Miss Rand's philosophy, it is not too hard to see why she has enemies both right and left. She had no use for religion (organized or otherwise), in fact, she saw it as one of the two great enemies of man's independence (and referred to religion as "mystics of the spirit"). The other foe was comprised of the enemies of the profit motive (collectively, "mystics of muscle"). Think of it as "Body and Soul" without the music. This philosophy is embodied in a speech of John Galt's which consumes nearly sixty printed pages. Ironic how the only speaker on the international scene still extant (if subdued) to rival Mr. Galt in length, if not philosophy, is Fidel Castro. Some would say they deserve each other. I would argue that the two would make excellent keynote speakers at an insomniac's convention. Sign me up!

So here is Dagny and her leading men, sexually independent and atheistic, bursting forth in the cold-war ridden mid-50's, when our chief enemy was being called, "godless, atheistic communism." Hardly a blueprint for family values and religion, let alone a 50's sit-com! And as for the selfishness, I have to admit to possessing more than a little in the innermost recesses of my heart. While I believe in charity, I also believe it begins at home, and that if more people took responsibility for their own lives (and those in their family who look to them for support ) the world (to invoke not one, but two cliches in a single sentence) would be a better place in which to live. I also believe that an environment which permits innovation to flourish is by far more desirable than a managed economy, however beneficent its goals. That said, I would be interested (and would welcome comments) on what I see to be one fatal flaw to the Objectivist's vision of a perfect society. It seems to presuppose that good money drives out bad (when the opposite is often true--seen any silver quarters lately?).

Although I think Hank Reardon, if left to his own devices would always do his best to make the highest quality product available, his success depends on others doing the same, and does not account for other's (selfish) failings. We were told by many (including the aforementioned Mr. Greenspan) that the best policeman for the economy was "the market." The unfettered market, may I remind you, did nothing to prevent or avert the near collapse of the U.S. (if not the world's) economy. While I don't besmirch the profit motive, were we not, just two years ago, almost destroyed by selfishness? Where were the John Galts and Hank Reardons when layer upon layer of compost was dumped upon the economy in the guise of "AAA" subprime collateralized debt obligations? Were the best "heroes" we could come up with the Paulsons and his merry band of short-sellers who had the prescience to know that the emperor was wearing no clothes? While an Objectivist might argue that people should be willing to pay the price for their own bad decisions, what about the millions of innocent people (from which I exclude many of the people who applied for and got "no docs" mortgages based on their own innacurate representations of creditworthiness) who lost jobs, pensions, and more in the aftermath of the melt-down. Who, but government, could have spoken for them? Let's face it, without the massive government intervention begun under Pres. Bush and continued under Pres. Obama, we would not be on the slow recovery that we are experiencing today. And, no, the answer is not more, but better, regulation. If one has any doubt on this subject, witness the S.E.C.'s performance in investigating the Madoff " looting" (to borrow one of Miss Rand's favorite words). Ideally, people should have just avoided dealing with Bernie's "too good to be true" promises, but we need the S.E.C. to toilet train the dog rather than show how well they can sweep up after him.

Bottom line--"Atlas" is an overly long and not very well-written book, with compelling characters whose actions exemplify an interesting, but imperfect, philosophy. Unsatisfying as it is to political and economic extremists of every stripe, the world is too complicated a place to be governed by such (and, perhaps, any) philosophy alone. Tax people to death and you remove the incentive for innovation. Tax people too little and you deprive the country of undeniably vital services (which services and to what degree they require funding is open to debate). Should the courts legislate? Probably not, but the legislatures certainly should (look at the legislative stalemate in my home state of New York and you'll see a prototype of inaction in action). Is the constitution a "living document," or should we be frozen by the words of the 18th century luminaries who, however wise and insightful, could never have foreseen, for one example, stem-cell research. How, for example, could capital punishment, which then extended to horse-stealing, now be considered "cruel and unusual" when now restricted to premeditated murder? And doesn't "In God we Trust" on our currency violate the separation of church and state? Does the "right to bear arms" have limits? I don't propose to have the answers to any of these questions other than to suggest that there are no absolutes and, more specifically, neither Ayn Rand nor John Galt have convinced me otherwise.

What Miss Rand does accomplish, and this is a signal achievement, is demonstrate that selfishness (I'd prefer the term "enlightened self-interest") is not necessarily a dirty word, and, whether we admit it or not, is very much a part of human nature. It's what makes most of us provide for ourselves and our loved ones. Remove it, and society as we know it would cease to exist. The "social contract" would be irretrievably broken. Most of us act in what we perceive of as being in our best interest, and have good reason to resent unwarranted government intrusion. But we must accept society saying, "sorry Chip, you can't open up your Bimmer to 110 on the highways, no matter how much fun it is. Nor can you drink, or twitter when you get behind the wheel. You also can't abuse your spouse, child, or someone over whom you exercise a position of trust." Not everybody has the right to be a doctor, lawyer, priest, or scoutmaster. Both society and the governing institutions have responsibilities to oversee such activities. The list, though not limitless, goes on and on. How we limit it is up to our elected representatives and the courts which interpret the laws they pass and administer. Laws to protect those in need of help are essential, and without them, you have anarchy, something of which even Miss Rand would disapprove. But "Atlas Shrugged" mattered when it was written fifty-three years ago, and still does. Read it, I double dare you.

"Home is where the address is"

As diehard baseball fans, my wife and I have no problem back home in Brooklyn, where she watches her hapless Mets on SNY on one TV, and I watch my beloved Yankees on YES on another. When at our vacation home in Florida, however, we can only watch our "home" teams when they are playing either the Florida Marlins or the Tampa Bay Rays. Once in a while, our teams are featured on ESPN, but the coverage is hardly sufficient for fan-addicts such as we.

Since our Brooklyn coverage is through DirectTV and Florida through Comcast, we cannot transfer our coverage as easily as, say, home delivery of the New York Times. The only solution was to buy the Major League Baseball "package," which gives you 80 (count 'em) games per week, including all the out-of-area contests involving the Mets and Yanks. Taking advantage of the "special early-bird discount price" (don't ask), we signed up. When it came time to view the games, I realized that neither of us had any idea of which channels the games were on, and my Comcast guide was hopelessly outdated. When I called the good folks at Comcast, they gave me the band of stations for the baseball package, and we were (almost) all set.

I then asked them if they would mail me two copies of their most current channel listings (which frequently change), and they readily agreed. When I started to give them our Florida address, they told me they already had it (indeed, I had to provide it to the voice robot in order to gain access to a human being), and then completed my sentence by providing our Brooklyn address, which we use for billing purposes. When I told them to please mail the schedules to our Florida address, they said they couldn't, as the addresses were computerized, and--unless we wanted to change our "official" address from Brooklyn to Florida--they'd have to mail the schedules to Brooklyn, something that would do neither of us any good.

How about, I suggested, they hand-address the schedules to our Florida residence (just this one time) and retain the Brooklyn address for all other correspondence. So sorry, I was told, our only option was to change addresses. Yes, I acknowledged, but then I wouldn't get the billing information in Brooklyn, where we still live most of the year. I then asked if I could change addresses for purposes of getting the schedules, and then, once received, change back to Brooklyn. Sure, they replied. After all, what could be easier. (By the way, I only received one of the requested two schedules, a penalty, I suppose, for "gaming"the system.)

T'is Better to have Lost and Found than Never to have Lost at all.

It's an interesting phenomenon, but nonetheless true; it is better to have lost and found than never to have lost at all. Let me give you an example. Right now, I am wearing my faux deep-sea diver's wristwatch, and it is a beauty, given to me as a birthday present by my wife (as a consolation prize when I became eligible for Social Security). While I am pleased to have it, and enjoy the way it keeps time and even reminds me of the date, I wouldn't say I'm in a constant state of awareness of having it on my wrist, let alone appreciation. But let's say I took it off before taking a shower, forgot where I had left it, and couldn't find it. Then, after much fruitless searching, pretend it turned up in the pocket of the terry-cloth robe I had put on after removing all my dirty clothes, but before going in the shower. Boy, would I be overjoyed, much happier than I was before misplacing it!

I imagine you have had the same experience. Sometimes, after losing something and not being able to find it, I offer a "deal" to the god of lost things--just let me know where it is--I don't even want it back. I've long imagined there is a room--perhaps in another dimension--where all my lost items--from childhood to senescence-- are stored. Maybe they're all in heaven, a sort of celestial "lost and found." "There's my skate-key, and my irreplaceable copy of Linda Ronstadt singing "Laga Azul" ("Blue Bayou" in Spanish--just try to find the out-of-print '45). Now there's something to look forward to!

Look, we all lose things and always have. Unfortunately, this predeliction only increases with advancing age. The computer world, for example, has opened up a whole new range of things to lose; e.g. "passwords" you're certain you'll never forget, but do, so we just have to learn to live with it. I even once forgot the password to this blog, but I digress.

Anyway, here's my favorite "retrieved loss" story. About a year ago, I was in the car and about to go out for the evening only to discover that my eyeglass case was empty. Now you might think to yourself, "why didn't you put them in the case when you took them off?" I'd be the first to agree with the soundness of your thought. Here's the thing; I only recently started wearing eyeglasses. For many years, I fooled the world into thinking I was normally sighted by wearing contact lenses. The glasses thing started when an opthamologist I had consulted detected the beginning of what he cleverly called a "cadillac" in my right eye, which was causing a distracting bit of haziness. When I asked him what I should do, his suggestion was simple--wear sunglasses whenever you are out of doors in the daytime. So, I got sunglasses, and wore them over my contacts and mirabile dictu, the haziness cleared. When I had my next year's eye exam, he noticed a bit of corneal wear and tear. To be sure, this was hardly welcome news, but it turns out that, after good behavior, the cornea repairs itself. Foolishly, I had been using saline solution as eye-drops. Who knew?

Okay, I thought, enough with the contact lenses. While normally with me, vanity trumps utility 99 out of 100 times, now was the time to concede. Since my near vision remains 20/20, all I needed were glasses with a distance prescription. In point of fact, since it was getting harder to read with contacts on than without them, this was actually a "win-win." So, I got a very nice (and costly) pair of fashionable distance lenses that were light as a feather, and got darker when I went outside. They call them "transition lenses," an appropriate term for a man who had just entered (semi) retirement. Actually, they looked kind of cool, for glasses.

After vainly searching every nook and cranny in the house, I decided to meditate on the loss. Eureka, I said to myself, as I rose from my trance, having realized what must have happened. The last time I remembered having them with me was when I wore them to play tennis at my local club. Perhaps (I mused) I had played with them, put them down somewhere when I was done, went to use the bathroom, made a call, whatever, and then got on my bike and rode home, sans glasses. When I got home, I took my hard-shell eye-glass case out of my tennis racket case and put the case on its usual spot on the dresser. (Useful hint #1--always put stuff in the same spot. That way, it's far more likely to be where you left it.) Yes, it simply had to be at the tennis club.

Feeling proud of myself, I called the club and got the manager, who actually lives on premises. "Did you find a pair of missing men's glasses?" I asked. His response was neither a "yes" or a "no." "Look in the left-hand top drawer of the desk, by the sign-up sheet," he suggested. Mounting my trusty bike (yes, I can see well enough not to pedal into lampposts without glasses), off I sped to the club. When I opened the aforementioned drawer, I saw several pairs of glasses in the front section, none of them mine. (Ever wonder why they call them a "pair" of glasses? Far as I could tell, I was just missing one.) I then sought out our club manager, a man more earnest than diligent, and asked in my most lawyerly tone (the one I had honed over years of cross-examination) whether he had actually found a missing pair of glasses the day before, or simply was directing me to the location where he customarily put misplaced glasses. His "I don't know," was hardly dispositive. Upon further grilling, he tearily confessed that he didn't remember. I then conducted a thorough, though fruitless, search all around the club. Did I leave them on the book-case just outside the men's-room; in the men's room itself; on the desk-top; on the court; anywhere? Nada.

Home I went, feeling proud of my skillful interrogation techniques, but still clueless as to the whereabouts of my "designer lenses." As you can well imagine, what followed was another frustrating search of my house, a big old Victorian with more nooks and crannies than a Thomas's English Muffin. I was just about at my wit's end--an arguably short tether--when I decided I no longer wanted the glasses back. Just have "Hermes the Trickster" or whoever pulls these pranks on us say, "schmendrick, you're wearing them," or "they're in your tennis shorts, which you put in the washing machine" or something. No, no, I silently screamed--don't give into him, he's just messing with your head. They're not in the celestial lost and found, and besides, in heaven, everyone has perfect eyesight. Just sleep on it. Things are always (supposedly) better in the morning.

And so, rising with the dawn, I decided to return to my last best hope for recovery--yon tennis club. I don't precisely know why I was going back, but it felt like the right thing to do. I sensed that I was going to find them this time. Returning to the scene of the crime, I opened the same drawer, but this time past the first section where the other glasses were stored and there--at the very back of the drawer, behind a wooden separation I had not previously thought to look behind--were my lost glasses. Now I, a heretofore unhappy and forgetful fool, was suddenly overjoyed. I was proud of my perseverance, and tenacity. Others may give up their searches in frustration, but not this guy! I was so happy, I took my wife out for a fancy, celebratory meal (made possible by the money I had "saved" by not needing a new pair of glasses). And yes, I did tell our brow-beaten club manager that I had found them-- just where he had said they might have been. Look, someone as resourceful and clever as I can afford to be gracious in victory. "Thanks, man, and, by the way, sorry," I said, confident in my triumphal success, but man enough to be humble. What a guy!

I still feel so good about having found them that it was well worth having lost them; far better than I would have had they remained safely within their case. After all, I haven't misplaced them since, and don't feel particularly overjoyed. One could even argue that careful people should never lose things. By the way, friends, I misplaced an all-too expensive pair of lightweight pigskin gloves somewhere on my way to a Board meeting last month. They're two-tones of tan, very luxurious. Anybody see them?