MINNIE, MINNIE, MINNIE

Elected to Hall of Fame today along with Jim Katt, Tony Oliva and Gil Hodges. Minnie Minoso garnered 14 of 16 votes, most on any inductee and 2 more than the minimum of 12 to get his posthumous HOF ticket punched. Minnie can't get the '51 Rookie Award he was denied almost certainly became of his skin color, but he's up there with all the other greats as he most certainly deserves. My wish from last week's post has come to pass.

To Chicago White Sox fans Minnie Minoso is legendary, being one of baseball’s best during the 13 year period from ’51 thru ’63, mostly with the Pale Hose. A pioneer Black Latino player, whom Jose Conseco dubbed ‘Our Jackie Robinson’, he was overlooked during his initial eligibility to enter the Hall of Fame. But Minnie gets another bite at the Hall apple when the Golden Days Era Committee considers Minoso and 9 other greats from the 1950 thru 1969 era. Minnie must garner at least 12 of the 16 votes for a posthumous ticket to Cooperstown.

If he gets it, then just the following injustice, from his fabulous ’51 rookie year, will remain uncorrected.

When Minoso lost '51 Rookie Award to one shade of black

When 28-year-old rookie White Sox outfielder Minnie Minoso stepped to the plate in old Comisky Park for his first at bat on May 1, 1951, fans were seeing more than the man breaking the color bar on the formerly all-white White Sox. Minnie smacked a Vic Raschi fastball into the center field bullpen, ushering in the Go Go era on the South Side after 32 years in the American League wilderness, following ironically, the Black Sox scandal of 1919. Watching Minoso's debut ball disappear in the bullpen was 22-year-old rookie Gil McDougald, playing second for the still all white Yanks.

Six months later McDougald edged out the Cuban Comet as AL Rookie of the Year with 13 first place votes to Minnie's 11. McDougald had a pretty good year, batting .306 with 41 extra base hits, 63 RBI, 14 stolen bases and a .396 on base percentage. And Minoso? He had a monster rookie year with a .326 average, 58 extra base hits, 76 RBI, 31 stolen bases and a .422 on base percentage. There's more: Minnie combined those power numbers with 16 more walks and 12 fewer strike outs. More again: McDougald was just a cog on a Yankee team with more stars than MGM, while Minnie was the catalyst for the Sox improbable revival.

There's no do-over for sports awards and if Minnie were still alive today, he'd demur if questioned on one of the great thefts in all of sports. And McDougald? If alive today, and you asked him about the current debate over white privilege, he'd likely point to that 70-year-old Rookie of the Year Award gathering dust on his mantle and reply simply, "That's white privilege".

After 80 years, time for Congress to take back power to declare war

Eighty years ago Congress last issued a declaration of war as required by Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11 of the Constitution: “The Congress shall have power to declare war.” Invoked to launch or defend against wars 3 times in the 19th and twice in the 20th century, that Constitutional requirement has become as outdated as a dial telephone used to spread the news of the last one, December 8, 1941.

Once established as the world’s supreme superpower, American presidents, beginning with Harry Truman in 1950, decided to abandon the need to ask Congress to declare war. Incredibly, Congress went along with this enormous transfer of the war power to the president. When Truman decided to intervene in the Korean conflict, he simply called it a police action and began a military campaign that took several million Korean lives as well inflicting 128,000 U.S. casualties, of which 36,500 died. That’s some ‘police action’.

In the 71 years since, the U.S. has engaged in dozens of wars, some so secret most Americans are oblivious to their occurrence. Several million were killed in America’s undeclared wars in Korea and Vietnam alone. Hundreds of thousands more were killed in U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Panama, Serbia, Libya and Yemen to name six. The slaughter in Yemen, heading into its 8th year, was outsourced to Saudi Arabia, using U.S. planes, drones, bombs and intelligence. Tens of thousands were killed in numerous Latin American countries who dared seek progressive reforms. Such efforts threatened American business interests inspiring U.S. presidents to launch insurgencies against decent governments labeled communist. We’re still degrading life in Cuba for 62 years for simply overthrowing a vicious dictator who, for a quarter century, handed over Cuba’s wealth to ravenous U.S. companies and organized U.S. crime.

During these 8 decades Congress never explicitly granted the 13 presidents succeeding Truman the power to unilaterally wage war. Congress pays lip service to Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11, occasionally making feeble efforts to take it back.

Why does Congress sit back, letting presidents run amok with war? Many congresspersons enjoy watching murderous American firepower from the safety of their congressional desk. Virtually all see no upside in opposing presidential warfare, fearing loss of seat to opponents charging them with being soft on communism, terrorism or the bogeyman of the day. They can bask in victory or claim innocence from guilt when war goes badly as it often does. Incredibly, many in Congress cry endlessly over billions spent on improving life in the homeland, but grow mute as trillions are squandered for endless, murderous warfare.

December 7, we mourn the 2,403 U.S. personnel who died on the Day of Infamy 80 years ago. We should also mourn the death, a day later, of Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11, the Congressional power to declare war.

Stagg great coach but no saint in football ethics

David Sumner’s Tribune op-ed “Here’s a football coach who understands the college game should not be about money” could have been subtitled “But sure should be about winning.“ The coach is legendary University of Chicago coach Amos Alonzo Stagg, who Sumner’s implies, walked on water during his 41 years at U of C as well as his namesake Stagg Field.

During Stagg’s early glory years of 1901 – 1905, he was locked in a titanic battle with rival University of Michigan coach Fielding Yost for football glory. Both coaches used underhanded means of recruiting gifted athletes, with little talent or inclination for academics, to defeat each other, as both vied for the Western Conference (Big 10) title as well as the national championship. In addition, both coaches influenced professors and administrators to retain unqualified star footballers.

The most egregious example was Stagg’s top player Walter Eckersall, 3 time All American, who led Stagg’s Maroons to their first win over Yost’s Wolverines in 1905 after 4 straight losses. The victory ended Michigan’s 56 game unbeaten streak, and garnered for Stagg both the Western Conference and national football titles.

But Eckersall’s gridiron heroics hid the fact he was essentially a paid ringer. He spent his freshman year enrolled solely in remedial courses to simply qualify for college academics. In 4 years he earned just 14 credit hours, 22 shy of a degree. To exasperated professors he might not have been the ‘Galloping Ghost’ on the gridiron but sure was the galloping ghost on class attendance sheets’.

Yet, if there was one thing Stagg was as good at as coaching, it was hiding his and Eckersall’s shenanigans to achieve the pinnacle of football glory. Eckersall’s sorrowful academic record remained safely buried behind Stagg’s pious pronouncements of collegiate football purity, free from the corrupting influence of money; gratuities offered gifted athletes notwithstanding. Even when ethical reforms were implemented for the 1906 season to combat rampant chicanery by Stagg, Yost and others, Stagg’s reputation remained pure as Ivory Soap.

As a now 54 year alum of the University, I still remember attending a ‘scrimmage’ against North Central College on November 8, 1963. I showed up at Stagg Field to watch the rebirth of football at U of C, 24 years after President Robert Hutchins abolished the sport to keep academics supreme. Two hundred of my classmates showed up to clog the field, stopping the game to protest the mere idea of football returning to University of Chicago. The delayed game finally was played, but only after 4 students, including one of my dorm mates, were arrested.

Maybe those protesters were a bit of poetic justice for Stagg’s lust for football glory using tainted ethics 60 years earlier.