A Visit to the Ted Williams Museum at Tropicana Field

But first a slight but related digression...

Does "Red Sox Nation" need a bailout?

The team's Wild Card lead is down to three games after last night's loss (game one of a critical four-game series) to Tampa Bay, and this weekend will likely determine if they can stave off the feisty Rays for an AL playoff berth.

The formerly first place Sox began the 2011 season with a miserable April, and then dominated for most of the summer, before tanking again in the last few weeks.

Baseball is no longer America's favorite pastime. Pro football has become the number one spectator sport in part because of the gambling and the fact that there are only 16 regular season games. And also because there is a lot of action.

But because of Major League Baseball's everyday nature, it becomes sort of a friend, or even a soap opera for men (and some women too, of course), as the momentum can change from game to game or even within a game. Even though an individual baseball game is obviously not as demanding as in other sports, the physical and mental toughness of the players to navigate a 162-game baseball season (plus playoffs) is admirable--leaving aside the sketchy off-the-field reputation of many MLB players.

Baseball is a lot of fun in person--apart from the people watching, even a routine fly ball out is pretty impressive.

On TV, however, baseball is boring. Hence the problem.

In a playoff game, every gut-wrenching pitch can be crucial, every play pivotal. A regular season game, in general, perhaps not so much. In general, then, baseball needs to speed up the games to ensure its future fan base. The players simply need to stay in their work stations. Pitchers need to throw the ball promptly, batters need to stay in the batters box and be ready to hit. Walking around the mound or outside the box, adjusting batting gloves, spitting, all such time wasting has got to go. It's been said that the slow pace that generates drama is baseball's greatest strength in a hotly contested game or say in the bottom of the 9th, but it's the game's greatest weakness otherwise.

Anyway, back on July 17, we had the opportunity to be in the stands for the incredible 16-inning Sox-Rays game at Tropicana Field ("the Trop") which the Sox finally prevailed 1-0. As it was the ESPN Sunday night national game, it started at 8 p.m. but didn't finish until about 2 the following morning.

It was one of the best game's we've every seen.

Excellent pitching and defense by both teams (there were only eight total hits). The game had just about every ancillary event including one of the Rays players shattering an overhead lamp in the indoor stadium with a foul ball, a fan running out on the field, and some other stuff we can't remember anymore. Immediately before game time, a downpour unleashed on St. Petersburg and you could hear the rain furiously pounding on the stadium roof (the storm's intensity could have easily caused a power outage--which did occur during a storm a few days later apparently).

Although the sports media claim that the Trop is a "dump," we think it's a actually a cool place to see a game. Attendance has unfortunately been lackluster over the years even though the Rays are a feisty, fun team that operates with a much lower payroll than their AL East rivals.

It is, we want to underscore, up to the people--not the obnoxious sports pundits who get in for free--how they want to spend their money.

Apart from the game itself, and not necessarily an extra-inning marathon, one of the coolest things about going to a Rays home game at the Trop is visiting the Ted Williams Museum and Hitters Hall of Fame, which so much memorabilia that it seems like a mini Cooperstown. Baseball superstar Ted Williams, the Red Sox left fielder and Florida resident, was one of the greatest hitters in baseball history and the last player to average .400 for a season. He was also a war hero.

Here are some pictures that we took at the museum before the game:

Apartheid in the Middle East

You have to wonder how delusional anti-Israel "activists" function in day-to-day life given their unreal claims that apartheid is in effect in that country.

Yesterday, Michael Rubin posted this at Commentary.com:

According to this report in USA Today, the Palestine Liberation Organization’s representative in Washington has declared there will be no place in any future Palestinian state for Jews. There are several ironies.

Turkey and perhaps European countries as well are maybe on the verge of recognizing the first state since Nazi Germany to propose a judenrein policy. There are several ironies: First, Israel, whose Arab Christian and Muslim minorities—perhaps 20 percent of the population—have full rights, but is lambasted by the cocktail set as racist. Second, when the Netanyahu government proposed recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, many diplomats—including those in the State Department—balked. But to propose a Jew-free state? That’s okay.

Back on August 30, Dennis Prager (at National Review Online) rejected the apartheid comparisons:

One and a half million Arabs live in Israel, constituting about 20 percent of the country’s population. They have the same rights as all other Israeli citizens. They can vote, and they do. They can serve in the Israeli parliament, and they do. They can own property, businesses, and work in professions alongside other Israelis, and they do. They can be judges, and they are. Here’s one telling example: It was an Arab judge on Israel’s supreme court who sentenced the former president of Israel, a Jew, to jail on a rape charge...

Arabs in Israel live freer lives than Arabs living anywhere in the Arab world. No Arab in any Arab country has the civil rights and personal liberty that Arabs in Israel have...

So, then, why is Israel called an apartheid state?Because by comparing the freest, most equitable country in the Middle East to the former South Africa, those who seek Israel’s demise hope they can persuade uninformed people that Israel doesn’t deserve to exist just as apartheid South Africa didn’t deserve to exist.

White House Implicated in $500 Million Green Jobs Scam

Crony capitalism update: While Rick Perry may have a problem adequately explaining his executive order on the HPV vaccine, Congress, the FBI, and the Treasury Department have launched investigations into Obama administration role in fast-tracking about half a billion dollars in loan guarantees to now bankrupt energy company Solyndra.

As Michelle Malkin explains:

The latest developments breaking in the Solyndra scandal last night? Obama’s White House tried to rush the $535 million loan review, prompting complaints from financial officials. The White House, naturally, denies any improper intervention, politicization, and string-pulling....

The answer to the question “What did they know and when” is this: They KNEW Solyndra was a risky, lousy deal for taxpayers. They KNEW on Aug. 19, 2009 that the financial models their credit reviewers used predicted Solyndra would run out of cash in September 2011. They KNEW it would fail. But they forged ahead, took our money to prop it up, and pimped the company in front of the TV cameras, anyway.

ABC's Brian Ross has been investigating:

R.I.P. Andy Whitfield

Sad news this week of the passing of Welsh/Australian actor Andy Whitfield, 39, from non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Whitfield played the title role in the superb Starz miniseries Spartacus: Blood and Sand, and as a result was on the verge of major stardom. His illness caused the second season to go on hold during which an equally superb prequel (without the Spartacus character) Spartacus: Gods of the Arena was filmed. Pre-production of season two started when Whitfield was pronounced cancer free, but sadly his cancer returned. Both series (warning: adult content) are available on Netflix but don't wait because Netflix and Starz recently broke off contract negotiations on a new content agreement. Starz ultimately replaced Whitfield with Australian actor Liam McIntyre for the new season.

[photo credit: Gage Skidmore]

GOP's Bob Turner Wins Special House Election in NYC

Only in America can the creator of the Jerry Springer Show replace the disgraced "sexting" politician Anthony Weiner in the U..S. House of Representatives.

In an outcome with national implications, Bob Turner, the retired television executive, won the special election to replace Weiner in New York's Ninth Congressional District (Brooklyn and Queens) yesterday and becomes the first Republican to represent the district in some 90 years.

Turner, a solid conservative, was the upset GOP winner over originally heavily favored career politician David Weprin, a Democrat, despite the 3-to-1 Democrat registration advantage. Turner was also endorsed by several high-profile Democrats in the area.

The House seat went to the Republicans because of the Obama administration's mishandling of the economy and Obama's hostility towards the state of Israel. Another factor may have been Weprin's support as a state legislator for the new same sex marriage law in New York according to many analysts.

Notably, the Democrat machine's usual and tiresome scare mongering against Republicans failed to gain any traction in this election. The New York Post reports that "Weprin’s campaign, the Democratic Party and unions poured more than $1.5 million into the race" in the failed effort.

Dare we say it...the Democrats "pulled a boner" perhaps in trying to keep the seat in their party's traditional column. And while conventional wisdom is that NY09 will be phased out in redistricting, conventional wisdom--as shown by this election result--is often wrong.

President Obama appears to have accomplished his stated goal of uniting the country--Democrats, Republicans, and Independents are united against his bureaucratic socialist agenda. In the meantime, the media and the Democrats continue to delude themselves with bogus stories (based on rigged opinion polling) that the Tea Party movement is falling out of favor or losing vitality.

In another special House election to fill a vacancy, Republican Mark Amodei was easily elected in Nevada's Second Congressional District.

A pro-Turner campaign commercial:

Heckle and Beckel: The Five Should be Renamed the Three

Fox News Channel's The Five (i.e., five panelists at 5 p.m. Eastern time Monday through Friday) was apparently meant as a summer placeholder in Glen Beck's former time slot, but ratings have been so good so it may become a permanent part of the schedule.

If Fox producers are reading, isn't it time for one of the regular panelists, the disruptively clownish Bob Beckel, to go back to D.C. to "spend more time with his family"? Admittedly Beckel--a failed Democrat political consultant--at times can be funny and unpredictable and provide insight on the inner workings of a political campaign, but his hectoring/heckling and/or pouting against virtually all things non-liberal (along with an inability unlike his favorite president to read a teleprompter) is getting really tired.

All you really need to know about Beckel is his claim that "Barack Obama is the greatest economic president in my lifetime." FNC replaced Beck with Beckel, and now it's time to replace Beckel.

Apart from tired liberal propaganda, much of his other on-air input consists of personal attacks on the other panelists and political figures with whom he disagrees.

His lame complaints that he's politically "outnumbered" on the show ring hollow when you consider the equivalent roundtables on ABC, NBC, CBS, NPR, CNN and so forth. The fact that the other hosts seem to find it necessary to pander to him or try to mollify him as a result is annoying.

Beckel also recently made a borderline racial slur against Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. Can you imagine the outcry had a similar statement been made by a right-of-center commentator? Beckel's overbearing participation on the show does serve, however, to give a peek behind the curtain as to what liberals are really thinking about matters of race and ethnicity; as the iconic talk radio host Bob Grant used to say, "liberals are the ultimate hypocrites."

So, Fox producers, how about renaming the show The Three--minus Beckel and Eric Bolling? The regular lineup should then include the stunning Kimberly Guilfoyle, the libertarian "everyman" Greg Gutfeld, and former White House spokesperson and equally stunning Dana Perino (with able backup support from Andrea Tantaros and Monica Crowley as necessary). Bolling already has a full plate on the Fox Business Channel and doesn't really add much to the show.

Although her preening for the camera is somewhat off-putting, Guilfoyle--a former model, prosecutor, and "first lady of San Francisco"--has a quick, sassy sense of humor. Her clever one-liners are often lost in the crosstalk so a smaller panel would be an upgrade in this regard. Gutfeld, the Red Eye host, doesn't take himself too seriously or claim to be a political pundit but also has an irreverent, creative world view. Perino functions well as the more grounded voice of reason.

So the recipe boils down to less Beckel and more Guilfoyle.

In general, it's a watchable show but The Five could benefit by avoiding a rehash of some of the same boring stories that all the other cable network shows are covering. And how about agreeing on one host rather than rotating that function after each commercial?

Was the Hoover Dam a Shovel-Ready Project?

President Obama's campaign headquarters, otherwise known as the ratings-challenged MSNBC network, is running a lame "lean forward" (whatever that means) promotional campaign with the Hoover Dam as a backdrop, as Jonah Golberg writes at National Review Online, featuring MSNBC host Rachel Maddow (and others) "waxing poetic on the glories of government and liberalism."

But as Goldberg in effect explains, Hoover--we have a problem:

The reason the ad is so funny is that nobody thinks liberals such as Maddow would support anything like the Hoover Dam today. The Hoover Dam is a marvel. But by today’s green standards, it is a crime against nature. If you tried to build it, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Greenpeace would be in court tomorrow blocking it, with Ms. Maddow cheering them on.

Indeed, look at all the activists attacking the proposed construction of an oil pipeline from Canada to the Texas coast. It would create thousands of construction jobs and yet liberals oppose it for the usual petrophobic reasons. Ironically, liberals love building highways and bridges, but loathe making it affordable to drive on them. This is just a small example of the Catch-22 liberalism has found itself in.

We're currently reading Goldberg's informative and well-researched book Liberal Fascism which is highly recommended.