Mountain Views News, Combined Edition Saturday, September 12, 2020

12

OPINION

 Mountain Views News Saturday, September 12, 2020 


STUART TOLCHIN

PUT ME IN COACH

MOUNTAIN 
VIEWS

NEWS

PUBLISHER/ EDITOR

Susan Henderson

PASADENA CITY 
EDITOR

Dean Lee 

PRODUCTION

SALES

Patricia Colonello

626-355-2737 

626-818-2698

WEBMASTER

John Aveny 

DISTRIBUTION

CONTRIBUTORS

Stuart Tolchin 

Audrey Swanson

Mary Lou Caldwell

Kevin McGuire

Chris Leclerc

Bob Eklund

Howard Hays

Paul Carpenter

Kim Clymer-Kelley

Christopher Nyerges

Peter Dills 

Rich Johnson

Lori Ann Harris

Rev. James Snyder

Katie Hopkins

Deanne Davis

Despina Arouzman

Jeff Brown

Marc Garlett

Keely Toten

Dan Golden

Rebecca Wright

Hail Hamilton

Joan Schmidt

LaQuetta Shamblee

 
I have to write this article fast because we 
received notice a little while ago that it may be 
necessary to get ready to be ready to be evacuated 
because of the fire. It all depends on the way the 
Santa Anna winds blow. So by the time you read 
this you will know whether or not the evacuation 
took place or not. 

Minutes ago I began this article thinking I wanted 
to write about my understanding of why so 
many people on all positions within the political 
spectrum are out there every night, risking their 
lives, demonstrating. 

Meanwhile I barely risk leaving the house as I’m told I’m in some super vulnerable 
category that makes living a life too dangerous. A friend over the phone told me 
his eleven year old daughter who was sick of being restricted tried to explain to 
him that the “purpose of life was to have fun.” Is she wrong? Frankly, I don’t even 
know what “fun” means or is. Someone texted me what I would like to be doing if 
I had a million dollars and no responsibilities. All I could think of saying was that 
I would like to have decent glasses and a lot of books around. Even as I said it I 
realized that I was having trouble finding any book that would hold my attention. 
Surprisingly I learned from Michelle Obama’s podcast that she too was having a 
similar problem. 

 I had decided to challenge myself to read a book and to pick one that I 
knew from the start would not interest me. The challenge was lost as “The Art of 
Calligraphy” still lies unopened beside me. I cannot focus on much of anything 
other than texting people and writing my articles. The Dodgers, Angels, Lakers, 
and the U.S Tennis Open are all being televised today and I don’t care. As you 
can probably discern all of this isolation is driving me a bit mad. I chanced on a 
solution. I prevailed on the editor of this newspaper to allow me to do a series of 
interviews with people in and around Sierra Madre. The preliminary conversations 
taking place on our outside deck, for me at least have been marvelously interesting. 
Unfortunately presenting lucid recapitulations of these conversations within a 600 
word limit is a very difficult achievement. But I’m doing my best.

 My present unforeseen difficulty results from interviewing highly 
intelligent people of vastly different political perspectives. I try very hard not to be 
argumentative but simply to listen closely and to understand their reasoning. I have 
done this so well that I am now less certain about my own lifelong political positions. 
This realization gives me some understanding as to why most of us just like to talk 
to people within our own bubble with those who nod in agreement, laugh at our 
jokes, and repeat the same positions back to us. Previously, I had been confused 
as to what motivated the demonstrators within that large political spectrum to get 
out on the street every night. I now speculate that they are all tired of being passive 
observers to what each individual believes is the potential ruination of the society 
or even the planet. They want to get off the sidelines and enter the game and do 
something. No one seems to want a conversation as they already know they are 
right and on the street they can celebrate their rightness (wrong word –correctness 
is better) and they all are happier feeling themselves as now active participants in 
the pursuit of the common good. I want that too! I want to get off the sidelines. Put 
me in Coach although right now I’m unsure what position to play or whether I’m 
on offense or defense.

I would welcome any feedback and receive emails at stuarttolchin@ gmail.com 


Mountain Views News 
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Case number GS004724: 
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Madre, California, 91024. 
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JOE GURZADDI


TOM SEAVER AND BASEBALL’S 
ALTERED GAME

Baseball fans will be a long-time mourning Tom 
Seaver’s passing. “Tom Terrific” was an icon like 
Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle and Ted Williams 
who, for those who watched them play, will forever 
treasure the experience.

 Baseball analyst Bill James argues that Seaver 
ranks among baseball’s best-ever pitchers, equal to 
or better than Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson 
or Bob Feller. More important when lamenting 
Seaver’s death, however, is to remember his 
character. When the National Baseball Hall of Fame announced Seaver’s death, 
it referred to his dignity, sportsmanship, integrity and wisdom, qualities too-
infrequently found in famous athletes.

 Since Seaver’s stellar 1969 season when he led the “Miracle Mets” to a World 
Series victory, baseball has undergone transformative changes: three more expansion 
rounds, divisional realignment, radically altered on-the-field game 
execution philosophy, foolish rule changes and several added layers of post-
season play.

 One of the most dramatic shifts is the demographic composition in the player 
rosters from mostly native-born Americans to roughly 30 percent foreign nationals. 
On Seaver’s 1969 Mets, the 25-man roster was 100 percent U.S.-born, 
which included five African-Americans. The 2020 Mets Opening Day roster 
includes nine foreign nationals, a mix of Cubans, Dominicans and Venezuelans, 
but no African Americans. In 2019, only 68 African-American players 
appeared on opening-day rosters, injured lists and restricted lists. During the 
same year, rosters listed 251 international players.

 Fans wonder how, over a half century, foreign nationals displaced about 30 
percent of American-born players. They question why such prestigious, generously 
paid jobs go, virtually by default, to international players.

Therein hangs a tale.

 The short answer is the State Department’s willingness to issue a variety of 
nonimmigrant visas that enable international players to freely enter the U.S. 
The most commonly used is the P-1, which remains valid for the duration of 
players’ contracts, often for multiple years. Since 2006, even minor league players 
are P-1 qualified; before 2006, players received an H-2B visa, which meant 
they had to return home when the season ended. Unlike the H-2B, the P-1 has 
no numerical cap, so owners can no longer grouse about visa snafus that strand 
their international players.

 The backstory is that MLB franchise owners, who preside over a $10.7 billion 
industry, have business models identical to Microsoft, Apple and AT&T: 
hire cheap labor, and maximize profits. Caribbean players are cheaper to sign 
– period! Dick Balderson, former Seattle Mariners general manager, once said 
that in the impoverished Dominican Republic, even a modest signing bonus 
represents a small fortune. Team owners can sign 20 penurious Dominicans, 
also incentivized by the prospect of coming to the U.S. legally, for the same cost 
as four Americans.

 To hone Dominicans’ skills, all 30 MLB franchises have development camps 
run by professional coaches and trainers. Owners scuttled plans to start similar 
camps in Venezuela when the political climate became too unstable. Not a 
single similar MLB-maintained academy exists in the U.S.

 Instead of inking foreign nationals, owners could choose from an abundance 
of solid domestic players. The annual College World Series puts their talents 
on display. Yet, wrote author Ryan McGee in his book, “The Road to Omaha,” 
for most college players, the CWS is the last organized baseball game they ever 
participate in.

 Playing in the major league has to rate among the world’s best jobs. The starting, 
average and the highest salaries are, respectively, $565,000, $4.4 million 
and Los Angeles Angels’ Center Fielder Mike Trout’s bank-busting $35.5 million, 
a one-year installment on his $426.5 million 12-year contract.

 The international players are talented, and perhaps deserving of their place 
on an MLB roster. But, to repeat, playing MLB baseball is a job (although never 
considered such among its devotees).

 Talented U.S. players should get priority for playing in the big leagues, and 
making the riches that follow.

Joe Guzzardi writes for the Washington, D.C.-based Progressives for Immigration 
Reform. A newspaper columnist for 30 years, Joe writes about immigration 
and related social issues. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org

DICK POLMAN

TRUMP KNEW. END OF STORY.


In American law, criminal negligence is conduct in which 
a person ignores a known or obvious risk, or disregards the 
lives and safety of others.

We now have the perfect defendant.

It turns out – not that we’re surprised – that the failed casino 
owner knew all along that he was gambling recklessly 
with the lives and safety of the citizens he’d sworn to protect. As you undoubtedly 
know by now, Bob Woodward got it all on tape.

The first smoking gun was fired way back on Feb. 7, when Trump told Woodward 
that he was already well aware of COVID-19’s potential to wreak havoc: 
“You just breathe the air, and that’s how it passed…It’s also more deadly than even 
your strenuous flu…So, this is deadly stuff.”

So what did he do next? He staged five maskless rallies in confined spaces, exposing 
his MAGA suckers to the deadly disease that he knew was airborne. On 
Feb. 10, he wowed rally-goers in New Hampshire. On Feb. 19, he did it again in 
Arizona. On Feb. 21, he did it again in Nevada. On Feb. 28, he did it again in 
South Carolina. On March 2, he did it again in North Carolina.

And all that time, he kept comparing it to the common flu – in essence, giving 
people a false sense of security. He did that on Feb. 26, Feb. 27, Feb. 28, March 
2, March 4, March 6, March 9, and March 10. Everything was fine and dandy, he 
said on Feb. 26: “When you have 15 (infected) people, and the 15 within a couple 
days is going to be down close to zero, that’s a pretty good job we’ve done.”

Also on Feb. 26, he didn’t share his knowledge that coronavirus was far more 
deadly than the flu. On the contrary, he kept equating the two: “This will end. 
This will end. You look at flu season. [COVID-19] is a little bit different, but in 
some ways it’s easier and in some ways it’s a little bit tougher. But that’s a little bit 
like the flu. It’s a little like the regular flu that we have flu shots for.”

And at his maskless mass rally on March 2, as his trusting fans shared their airborne 
droplets without him issuing a word of warning, he peddled this fake sense 
of security: “They’re going to have vaccines, I think, relatively soon. And they’re 
going to have something that makes you feel better and that’s going to actually 
take place, we think, even sooner.”

He knew exactly what he was doing, as evidenced by the smoking gun he fired 
on March 19, telling Woodward on tape: “Really, to be honest with you…I wanted 
to always play it down. I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create 
a panic.”

He’s fine with trying to create a panic in suburbia with his racist warnings about 
black people invading paradise. But leveling with the American people at the earliest 
opportunity? Helping them prepare for a deadly threat? Taking every conceivable 
transparent step to minimize the death toll? That’s not how this guy rolls.

He infamously bragged that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not 
lose a vote. But while fully armed with foreknowledge about COVID-19, he has 
now shot and killed 190,000. Will that cost him votes? Are we so benumbed at 
this point that even the most flagrant smoking guns shoot only blanks?

Richard Nixon flew away in his helicopter for far less.

Dick Polman, a veteran national political columnist based in Philadelphia and a 
Writer in Residence at the University of Pennsylvania, writes at DickPolman.net. 
Email him at dickpolman7@gmail.com


Mountain Views News

Mission Statement

The traditions of 
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concerns of our readers 
are this newspaper’s 
top priorities. We 
support a prosperous 
community of well-
informed citizens. We 
hold in high regard the 
values of the exceptional 
quality of life in our 
community, including 
the magnificence of 
our natural resources. 
Integrity will be our guide. 

Mountain Views News 80 W Sierra Madre Blvd. No. 327 Sierra Madre, Ca. 91024 Office: 626.355.2737 Fax: 626.609.3285 Email: editor@mtnviewsnews.com Website: www.mtnviewsnews.com