#161 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Tuesday October 5)
Good morning!
BASEBALL BEFORE GEOPOLITICS
The baseball playoffs are here and I couldn’t be more excited (well, perhaps a bit more if the Angels were in the mix). I love so much about the sport, not the least the stories of my father’s love of the Yankees and the many games I attended with him, as well as the many games I’ve attended with Jake, Lauren and Brad. While baseball is “just a sport,” attending a ball game also is an experience in a way most sports are not. A visit to a ballpark is an attack on the senses—the colors, the field, the smells, familiar sounds—everything. Hearing the organ, the hot dog salesmen coming down the aisles, fans yelling at the ump and debating calls, and singing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” during the seventh inning stretch are all part of the experience.
Baseball is a game that has a long history that transcends generations. It is a sport obsessed with data and new and different ways to parse and analyze that data. Many of us honed our math skills in understanding baseball statistics—statistics that are as relevant today as they were in 1921. Only in baseball does one compare the player of this generation, Mike Trout, to the player of the 1920s generation, Babe Ruth. Arguments continue to be fought over who was the best left-hander ever (yes, it’s Koufax). There is no end to the debate comparing teams and players from different eras.
And while baseball is fundamentally the same game as played in the late 19th century, it has evolved in tiny ways to keep it competitive and balance offense and defense. There have been some rules changes to speed up the game recently but it is time for the sport to consider even more. The typical game is longer and, with the advent of computer games, attention spans have become shorter. The average nine inning game in the 1950s lasted a little less than two hours (actually 1:56). Now, with multiple visits to the pitcher’s mound, pitchers moving glacially between pitches and players taking their sweet time (including a disturbing number of adjustments to their package), the average nine inning game is now over THREE HOURS. Things must be done to speed up the game, including a pitch clock, further limits on mound visits, having a designated hitter in the National League, and other actions to speed the game.
In the meantime, Play Ball!
RECONSIDERING AFGHANISTAN
Professor Renee Marlin Bennet takes exception to my original reading of the pull-out, suggesting that my judgment was premature. I had argued that, with all the time to prepare for the eventual departure, it could have been executed better. I don’t dispute that there was no easy way out after the inability to “stand up” the Afghan army and the institutions of democratic government. The inevitability of departure was sealed when President Trump committed to leave, around the same time as he released Taliban soldiers from prison. But Renee is right. News reports are only initial drafts. History is the final report and it has not yet been written:
“The reporting on the ground had too small a field of view. Plus the emotional resonance of what was happening on the ground had a not unresonable effect on reporting, resulting in an impassioned rather than reflective tone, which made it even easier to talk of blame. What we have not seen yet is the big picture.
What were the other options that were considered and why were they dismissed? What were the difficult choices that were made about the nature and scope of the evacuation? What unexpected challenges disrupted plans, and should those challenges have been expected and planned for? (ISIS-K was just one of these.)
…The Afghan government never controlled the whole of Afghanistan; fighting by the Taliban was never eradicated…Everyone knew that the Afghan government needed the US and other Western countries’ active involvement to maintain even a modicum of control. In the end, we lost. Losing a war is always messy, this time made messier by the number of aid workers and civilian and military contractors that warfare in the 21st Century has come to rely on… But I do not yet know whether we will come to think of this as the best possible exit given the circumstances.
We need time and distance to refocus on these events, for evidence to come to light. We do not yet have the proper perspective…”
THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA
I think Renee has reminds us that the news is messy, particularly in messy situations, and the “big picture” takes time to emerge.
I’ve been thinking of something else as well... The mainstream media has pronounced the departure from Afghanistan as a huge failure (which seems a premature judgment, for reasons stated above). Yet the Trumpists have been quick to seize on the mainstream media’s reporting. All of the sudden, the media doesn’t seem so bad when it’s saying what they want it to say…
Have a great day,
Glenn
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