Marlins Ownership: Doublespeak Through Double Play

The first line from Jeff Passan's column reads, 'Florida Marlins president David Samson has perfected the art of doublespeak.' That actually might be an understatement. Passan, of Yahoo Sports, points out how the recently released Florida Marlins financial statements has disclosures which make David Samson's assertion on The Dan Lebatard Show this Wednesday that "Jeffrey Loria did not put a dollar in his pocket" a lie. This is a blog and I'm not a journalist, but I'll highlight that Passan credits my blog as a good source of information about the Marlins finances.

I'll be writing more specifically about what's in the financial statements -- for example, what could possibly be the source of debts for a team that since Loria purchased the franchise in 2002, has had, according to Forbes, net operating income of $134 million through 2009 -- but the key revelation in the Passan column is that the Managing General Partner of the Florida Marlins partnership is a Florida Corporation named Double Play [clever no?]. On the annual report filed with the State of Florida, a public document, Double Play's officers and directors are listed as Jeffrey Loria [CEO] and David Samson [President]. The main disclosures in the Marlins financial statements which make David Samson's statement untrue are:

• As the Passan article notes, the Marlins are the only one of the six teams whose financials were leaked to have taken a Management Fee in their operating expenses. The fees paid in the two years to DP/Loria came to $5.4 million.
• Related Party Promissory Note to DP/Loria was reduced from $19.9 to $14.1 million. So DP/Loria received $5.8 from the Marlins in repayment of loans.
• The DP/Loria Promissory Note also earned $3 million [$1.2 & 1.8] in interest for the two years.

If you are keeping score, that's $14.2 million that went from the Florida Marlins to DP/Loria. Management fees to companies you control, interest payments on related party loans and repayments of those loans are not illegal or even unusual, given certain tax implications. But they are unequivocally payments from the Florida Marlins to DP/Loria.

Now pretend you are Loria and Samson. Earlier in the week you had been exposed with the release of the documents. Samson is now going to be on a radio program taking questions. There may be times in the career of people who speak publicly, when they might make unintended comments. I don't think this could reasonably be considered one of those times. What David Samson said on Wednesday has to be considered the firm position of the Florida Marlins and Jeffrey Loria. What the experienced MLB executive decided to say was that "Jeffrey Loria did not put a dollar in his pocket."

The reaction of the people on LeBatard's radio show after their interview with Passan last night was revealing. They reminded me of a David Letterman line defending Pete Rose from charges of gambling: Recordings, fingerprints on betting slips, bank statements, and corroborating affidavits? Hey Commissioner, let's see some real evidence!

Passan had noted the management fees and interest received, but did not get into the repayment of the loans. The hosts reaction -- mind you, these were the people who Samson had told one day earlier that "Jeffrey Loria did not put a dollar in his pocket " -- was to speculate whether the $5.4 million in management fees could not have been considered a salary, ... and "who would begrudge them a salary," ... it was a "small amount of money, all things considered."

The point is not whether the $5.4 was salary [we don't know], or if that salary was fair, the point is that the president of the Florida Marlins did not go on the air the previous day and say; 'Aside from a fair salary, interest income and repayments of principal on a loan, the total of which is well into eight figures, Jeffrey Loria did not put any other dollars in his pocket.'

He did not say that for the same reason that he has been intentionally lying prior to the release of the financials. The reason is that owner of the Florida Marlins does not consider telling the truth a viable option given his objectives, a largely taxpayer-funded stadium and pocketing revenue sharing monies, instead of spending them as intended by MLB. What we've learned this week is that their willingness to lie remains unchanged.

Unless of course, we've all misconstrued the meaning of 'pocket.'

The Jeff Passan column referenced is copied in full at end of post.

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Marlins execs funneled cash to themselves
By Jeff Passan, Yahoo! Sports - Aug 27, 2010

Florida Marlins president David Samson has perfected the art of doublespeak. Even after the mushroom cloud settled over the disclosure of financial statements that showed he and Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria are indeed duplicitous, Samson couldn’t help himself. Lies are simply part of how the Marlins do business.

The latest came during Samson’s weekly radio appearance on The Dan LeBatard Show in Miami, during which he addressed Deadspin’s publication of the Marlins’ balance sheet. What Samson said was so provably false that it was akin to a 3-year-old trying to hide his peas under a pile of mashed potatoes.

“Jeffrey Loria did not put a dollar in his pocket,” Samson said.

So programmed is that statement in Samson’s head, he keeps repeating it, like a robot with a shorted circuit. He’s right. Jeffrey Loria did not put a dollar in his pocket.

He put millions.

On Page 34 of the documents, under the heading Note Y, is a transaction called “Management Fee.” A corporation named Double Play Company is listed as the Marlins’ managing general partner. The partner is paid a yearly sum. For the two years the documents cover, the fees were $2.6 million and $2.8 million. In 2009, the documents say, the fee was raised to $3.2 million.

Records from the Florida Division of Corporations show Double Play’s CEO is Jeffrey Loria. Its president is David Samson.

Of the six teams whose documents were leaked, only the Marlins have a management fee listed in their operating expenses.

Earlier in the balance sheet, under Note L, is a one-paragraph section called “Related Party Promissory Note.” It explains that the managing general partner made a number of loans to the team at 1.5 percent to 1.75 percent above the London Interbank Offered Rate – a particularly high interest rate for the current lending climate, according to two accountants who reviewed the Marlins’ financials. Over the past two years, the loans have paid Double Play $1.83 million and $1.19 million, respectively.

While the financial records of Double Play are unavailable because it is a private company, at least $8.42 million went to the managing general partner in the past two years. Though the documents do not show that Loria has taken a direct distribution of money as owner, it is undeniable that he plundered the team’s coffers as it received nearly $500 million in public funding for a new stadium and more than $75 million in revenue sharing from MLB.

Samson did not reply to a request for comment.

The ugliness of the ballpark debt was apparent long before the documents surfaced. To help fund the $634 million stadium complex, Miami-Dade County commissioners voted to secure more than $400 million in loans, most of which are loaded with balloon payments. The worst is a $91 million loan that will take $1.2 billion to pay off. By 2049, the county will have spent $2.4 billion to cover its portion of the stadium.

The anti-Marlins groundswell in South Florida continued Thursday when Miami mayor Tomas Regalado asked the city attorney to look into renegotiating a $100 million parking-facility contract for the stadium complex. Political backlash was a given after the Marlins’ refusal to release their financial records during the push for the new stadium.

For years, the Marlins cried poverty. Loria threatened to move the team from Florida. Despite several sources claiming the Marlins raked in money — Forbes’ annual valuations for the Marlins have proven extremely close to reality, and Miami-area accountant Jorge Costales has written incisively about Marlins finances — the county commissioners voted in December 2007 to pay for more than three-quarters of the stadium due open in 2012.

Samson claimed on LeBatard’s show that the tax dollars will come from tourism money devoted to sports and convention complexes. That is only half-true. To free the tourism-tax dollars, the county shifted general-use monies from property taxes to pay other debt. Take from one hand, give to the other and buy an owner worth hundreds of millions of dollars a new toy from which he reaps damn near every cent, all with the money of hardworking citizens.

This was avoidable, of course, had the county commissioners refused to approve a deal until they saw the Marlins’ financial statements. The management fee was an obvious red flag. How could Loria and Samson say they didn’t have enough money for a stadium when they were paying themselves? The loan was another red flag. Such revelations almost certainly would have given the commissioners pause about offering the breadth of public financing they did.

Loria refused transparency. He is an excellent businessman, and he knew the repercussions. In the end, the Marlins hoodwinked local politicians so caught up in the excitement of keeping the team in Miami, they forgot with whom they were dealing. When hundreds of millions of dollars are involved in anything, people are going to lie, and Loria and Samson made statement after misleading statement and got away with it.

“I never go back to regret what I do because I make decisions based on the information provided to me, my conscience and what is best for those I represent,” said Rebeca Sosa, one of the nine county commissioners who voted for the stadium funding against four opponents — including Regalado, now the mayor. “The situation and information I have today in my hand is different than the one I had before.

“I still support the Marlins stadium.”

How Sosa, or any commissioner who voted yes, could stand by a potential $2.4 billion of debt with a clear conscience is difficult to fathom. The Marlins are up to their old tricks, still pussyfooting their way around the facts. All those years the team had the lowest payroll in baseball, Samson claimed money went to hidden costs in running a ballclub. One of them, he told Sun-Sentinel columnist Dave Hyde, was marketing.

“Eight figures,” Samson said. He told The Miami Herald it was among the most in baseball.

In 2008, the Marlins spent $9.8 million on marketing, according to their balance sheet. The Tampa Bay Rays spent $23 million, the Pittsburgh Pirates $17.1 million, the Texas Rangers $16 million and the Los Angeles Angels $10 million. The only team to budget less among the six whose financials were leaked was the Seattle Mariners, whom the Marlins outspent by $11,000.

This isn’t a white lie here, a fib there. It is systemic. Marlins mislead, public follows. The balance sheet was a gift to Miami-Dade County taxpayers who deserve – and have deserved since the “yes” vote – to know how the team they were endowing is run.

The poor, poor Marlins had an operating profit of $48.9 million in 2008 and 2009, including $11.1 million last year, when they increased payroll and started paying off their stadium debt. Loria has already doubled his money on the Marlins – he bought the team for $158.5 million, including a $38.5 million interest-free loan, and it’s now worth $317 million, according to Forbes’ valuations – and the revenue streams from the new stadium should only increase that figure. A county hemorrhaging jobs funneled tax money to fund a stadium for a team with a reckless disregard for its community’s welfare.

The politicians can pursue recourse, and the fans can bellow, and it doesn’t change the reality that a $91 million loan to the county will take 39 years and $1.2 billion to pay off, and that Jeffrey Loria still owns the Florida Marlins with David Samson as his president, and that the retractable-roof stadium, the one that’s 40 percent done, was built on lies that never seem to end.
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Cash Rich and Honor Poor

In business, there are times when bad news is released and there is no apparent reaction because the information had been anticipated and already discounted. So it was yesterday in Miami, when Jeffrey Loria admitted lying and no one was surprised.

The Sun-Sentinel's Sarah Talalay documents how Jeffrey Loria [through David Samson] reacted to the public release of the Marlins financial statements:

However, with their contents revealed, Samson changed his long-held contention the team wasn't making a profit and instead said the documents prove the team has been saving its dollars to pay for its new baseball-only ballpark under construction in Little Havana.

Changing 'long-held contentions' could come as a result of soul searching. When it comes after financial documents prove you have been lying, the proper analogy involves rats instead of souls.

The article will ultimately be remembered for a particularly incisive quote towards the end:

"Local government's in business with a very profitable baseball team," said Jorge Costales, a Miami CPA, who blogs about Marlins finances. "To me, there's no doubt the Marlins' strategy since 2006 has been 'Let's budget as if we're not getting a cent from revenue sharing.' When it comes time to make payments on stadium, there should be no concerns about defaulting. The irony is to get the stadium, they've misinformed people about the profitability of the team."

For the record, I believe this story will have a good ending. A Major League Baseball franchise firmly established in Miami, a new stadium on the site of the great former Orange Bowl and at some point, the team of Loria and Samson voluntarily exiled from the City of Miami. They will leave financially enriched and little respected. Solovalla, ....

The Talalay article referenced is copied in full at end of post.

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Marlins more than profitable, records show
By Sarah Talalay, Sun Sentinel
August 23, 2010


The Marlins, who for years have said they weren't making a profit, generated nearly $50 million in operating income the past two years, documents show.

Financial records for a handful Major League Baseball teams obtained by Deadspin.com, show the Marlins had a net operating income of $37.84 million in 2008, when the team's on-field payroll was a league-low $24.8 million, and a more modest $11.1 million in 2009, when the payroll was up to $35.1 million.

Marlins President David Samson called the release of the information "disappointing" and a "crime" and said MLB and its clubs will launch an investigation.

However, with their contents revealed, Samson changed his long-held contention the team wasn't making a profit and instead said the documents prove the team has been saving its dollars to pay for its new baseball-only ballpark under construction in Little Havana.

"It basically confirms everything we have said over the years of how we've operated the team," Samson said Monday. "It's about making sure baseball would be secure in South Florida."

Samson said to ensure the team could meet its $155 million obligation to the $515 million ballpark, which is also being funded by $347 million from Miami-Dade County and $13 million from the city of Miami, it needed to show it had paid down debt and had assets to borrow against.

The team has been profitable in part because of its low payrolls - which ranked last among the 30 clubs in three of the last four years and second to last in 2007. Over the years, Samson has repeatedly denied the team made a profit and said payroll would reflect revenue.

"Very often the mistake that's made is they look at revenue sharing numbers and the team's payroll and take the difference and see profit without looking at our expenses," Samson said in 2007 in reference to a Forbes report the team had the league's highest operating income.

In 2008, he said, "We're always going to do what we can with revenues and match payroll to revenue in a current year."

But that contention clearly ruffled MLB and its Player Association enough to reach agreement with the team earlier this year that requires the club's 2010-12 payrolls better reflect the revenue sharing dollars it receives.

The Deadspin documents show the team benefited handsomely from the Major League Baseball's revenue sharing program — the system by which the richest teams share revenue with the lowest revenue ones to even competition.

Revenue sharing plus the dollars from MLB's central fund — the pot that includes items such as national TV contracts and to which all teams contribute and then receive an even distribution — brought the team more than $75 million each of the past two years. That's before factoring in ticket sales, sponsorships and the $16 million annually the team gets from local television and radio broadcast contracts.

Total revenues in 2009 were $135.5 million with expenses of $122.8 million, including dollars spent on the ballpark, the records show.

"Local government's in business with a very profitable baseball team," said Jorge Costales, a Miami CPA, who blogs about Marlins finances. "To me, there's no doubt the Marlins' strategy since 2006 has been 'Let's budget as if we're not getting a cent from revenue sharing.' When it comes time to make payments on stadium, there should be no concerns about defaulting. The irony is to get the stadium, they've misinformed people about the profitability of the team."

Miami politicians, who approved the ballpark deal, never saw the Marlins' finances.

"The Marlins' net worth was never a concern of ours," said Victoria Mallette, a spokeswoman for Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Alvarez. "The mayor and the [county] manager thought it would be an asset to the community. It's always been about a community asset and keeping professional sports in Miami-Dade County."

Staff Writer Juan C. Rodriguez contributed to this report. Sarah Talalay can be reached at stalalay@SunSentinel.com.
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Florida Marlins: Profitable As Charged

It's as though George Bailey was able to go back in time, Inception-like, and place a hidden camera in the offices of Old Man Potter and then get to play his misdeeds back for everyone to see. You can probably hear the citizens of Bedford Falls now, 'why you lying sack ....'

The Florida Marlins lost their best defense against the accusation of profitability yesterday when the web site Deadspin produced financial statements involving four major league teams, including the Marlins. Previously, despite absurdly low payrolls, team valuations which were consistent with Forbes analysis and the complaints of revenue sharing payee teams, Jeffrey Loria, through David Samson, would deflect criticism of their pocketing revenue sharing monies by asking if anyone could produce financial statements which would substantiate the claims of the Marlins profitability. Today the answer is yes.

I was most interested in how the Deadspin financials compared to the previous Forbes reporting. Here are the highlights [numbers in millions]:

• Operating Profits for the years 2008 and 2009 combined - $90 million according to both Forbes and the Deadspin - no difference
• 2009 Revenues - Forbes higher by 8
• 2009 Expenses - Forbes lower by 1
• 2008 Revenues - no difference
• 2008 Expenses - Forbes higher by 9

At first glance, there might appear to be a difference between the Forbes and Deadspin numbers. However, I believe the differences are attributable to certain accounts on the Deadspin [i.e. the Florida Marlins] financials being improperly classified as operating activities. Forbes would have likely not treated those accounts as affecting operating profits. Those expense accounts are:

• Ownership Payments [account reads Administration -- about $10 million each year by the way -- hey you thought Loria watched the games for free?]
• Management Fee - Related Party
• [New] Ballpark Expenditures

I prepared the spreadsheet below to illustrate my point. Please click on image to enlarge or print

In an attempt to deflect the bad news and ensure their fans that this proof of their lack of veracity would not change how they do business, the Marlins released one of their more popular players, Cody Ross.

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Cuban Catholic Hierarchy: Wheat or Chafe?

Please read the recent post by Robert Molleda over at his Searching for Signs blog. I agree with Robert's thoughts on the topic of the failure of the 'Cuban Ecclesiastical Hierarchy.'

It is tempting to compare this ongoing failure of the Cuban Catholic Church to other failures of the Church in general, but that type of speculation would just be lending comfort to our enemies at this point. But another thing that I will avoid is describing their behavior is inexplicable. What reason do we have to look beyond the obvious? The appear to be acting out of fear for their own well being -- personal security as well as positioning to remain unaffected over future upheavals, i.e. 'Hey remember us Commandantes, we didn't rock the boat' -- instead of compassion for their most needy and brave flock. Could it be that the bravery of the dissidents so highlights their own fecklessness that the Catholic hierarchy in Cuba has actually come to hate them as much as the Communist ruling class?

Whatever past compromises the 'Cuban Ecclesiastical Hierarchy' may have made, they received a pass of sorts for the tricky conditions they were operating under. That pass has clearly expired and they have been exposed to a great extent. Today the higher echelon of the Cuban Catholic Church behaves cowardly. Who concludes otherwise and why?

May God bless the dissidents. May the current powers that be in the Catholic leadership of Cuba survive any future sifting, even as I believe they behave like chafe.

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Bob Gibson, Thomas Sowell and Asian Students

Old baseball joke. Bob Gibson was the luckiest pitcher in major league baseball. Why? Every time he pitched, the other team didn't score any runs.

The great Thomas Sowell doing what he does best; pointing out the lack of logic behind the political correctness in much of the media.

In the case his column addresses, a New York City public school for the intellectually gifted has seen its demographics change as follows:

In 1995, the entering seventh-grade class was 12 percent black and 6 percent Hispanic, according to state data. This past year, it was 3 percent black and 1 percent Hispanic; the balance was 47 percent Asian and 41 percent white, with the other 8 percent of students identifying themselves as multiracial. The public school system as a whole is 70 percent black and Hispanic.

The student chosen to give a speech at graduation -- the school does not name a valedictorian, to relieve some of the pressure on its students [insert barf sound]-- used the opportunity to express his belief that the graduates were there "due to luck and circumstance," given that he could not believe that the demographic distribution of the graduating class accurately reflected the distribution of intelligence in the city.

Sowell dissects:

One of the biggest fallacies of our time is the notion that, if all groups are not proportionally represented in institutions, professions or income levels, that shows something wrong with society. The very possibility that people make their own choices, and that those choices have consequences-- for themselves and for others-- is ignored. Society is the universal scapegoat.

If "luck" is involved, it is the luck to be born into families and communities whose values and choices turn out to be productive for themselves and for others who benefit from the skills they acquire. Observers who blame tests or other criteria for the demographic imbalances which are the rule-- not the exception-- around the world, are blaming whatever conveys differences for creating those differences.

They blame the messenger who brings bad news.

The Sowell column referenced is copied in full at end of post.

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Cheering Immaturity
By Thomas Sowell
August 10, 2010

A graduating senior at Hunter College High School in New York gave a speech that brought a standing ovation from his teachers and got his picture in the New York Times. I hope it doesn't go to his head, because what he said was so illogical that it was an indictment of the mush that is being taught at even our elite educational institutions.

Young Justin Hudson, described as "black and Hispanic," opened by saying how much he appreciated reaching his graduation day at this very select public high school. Then he said, "I don't deserve any of this. And neither do you." The reason? He and his classmates were there because of "luck and circumstances."

Since Hunter College High School selects its applicants from the whole city on the basis of their test scores, "luck" seems a strange way to characterize why some students are admitted and many others are not. If you can't tell the difference between luck and performance, what has your education given you, except the rhetoric to conceal your confusion from others and perhaps from yourself?

Young Mr. Hudson's concern, apparently, is about what he referred to as the "demographics" of the school-- 41 percent white and 47 percent Asian, with blacks, Hispanics and others obviously far behind. "I refuse to accept" that "the distribution of intelligence in this city" varies by neighborhood, he said.

Native intelligence may indeed not vary by neighborhood but actual performance-- whether in schools, on the job or elsewhere-- involves far more than native intelligence. Wasted intelligence does nothing for an individual or society.

The reason a surgeon can operate on your heart, while someone of equal intelligence who is not a surgeon cannot, is because of what different people actually did with their intelligence. That has always varied, not only from individual to individual but from group to group-- and not only in this country, but in countries around the world and across the centuries of human history.

One of the biggest fallacies of our time is the notion that, if all groups are not proportionally represented in institutions, professions or income levels, that shows something wrong with society. The very possibility that people make their own choices, and that those choices have consequences-- for themselves and for others-- is ignored. Society is the universal scapegoat.

If "luck" is involved, it is the luck to be born into families and communities whose values and choices turn out to be productive for themselves and for others who benefit from the skills they acquire. Observers who blame tests or other criteria for the demographic imbalances which are the rule-- not the exception-- around the world, are blaming whatever conveys differences for creating those differences.

They blame the messenger who brings bad news.

If test scores are not the same for people from different backgrounds, that is no proof that there is something wrong with the tests. Tests do not exist to show what your potential was when you entered the world but to measure what you have actually accomplished since then, as a guide to what you are likely to continue to do in the future. Tests convey a difference that tests did not create. But the messenger gets blamed for the bad news.

Similarly, if prices are higher in high-crime neighborhoods, that is often blamed on those who charge those prices, rather than on those who create the higher costs of higher rates of shoplifting, robbery, vandalism and riots, which are passed on to those who shop in those neighborhoods. The prices convey a reality that the prices did not create. If these prices represent simply "greed" for higher profits, then why do most profit-seeking businesses avoid high-crime neighborhoods like the plague?

It is painful that people with lower incomes often have to pay higher prices, even though most people are not criminals, even in a high-crime neighborhood. But misconstruing the reasons is not going to help anybody, except race hustlers and politicians.

One of the many disservices done to young people by our schools and colleges is giving them the puffed up notion that they are in a position to pass sweeping judgments on a world that they have barely begun to experience. A standing ovation for childish remarks may produce "self-esteem" but promoting presumptuousness is unlikely to benefit either this student or society.

Copyright 2010, Creators Syndicate Inc.
Page Printed from: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/08/10/cheering_immaturity_106678.html at August 10, 2010 - 10:51:12 AM PDT
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Isiah Thomas: He's Just Not That Into [FI]U

If James Dolan or Pete Garcia were female, Isiah Thomas may not have seen his last sexual harassment lawsuit. Fortunately for Thomas, these men are in position to enable him to return to the NBA in an executive capacity, all the while continuing to be employed as a coach for a NCAA Division I school.

Thomas has impressively maneuvered his way into this position despite the following items on his recent resume:

• April 2008 - Fired from the New York Knicks after one of the worst executive tenures since Thomas himself ran the CBA out of existence.
• October 2008 - Having overdosed on sleeping pills, Thomas attempted to deflect attention by claiming the person revived and taken to the hospital was his daughter.
• April 2009 - Hired as FIU Coach.
• February 2010 - Publicly leaked interest in role with the Los Angeles Clippers.
• March 2010 - FIU's record of 7-25 placed it last in the Sun Belt Conference.
• July 2010 - New York Knicks hired Thomas to sway Lebron James. James declined to speak with Thomas.

What will likely develop in the next few weeks is that the NBA will determine that Thomas' dual role would violate boundaries it establishes between itself and the college game. At that point, Thomas will take a full-time position with the Knicks, pushing Donnie Walsh out the door. [If this doesn't happen, the Thomas hire officially becomes weirder than the Fredi Gonzalez firing]. At that time, FIU will name a coach which it is now scrambling to recruit, even as Pete Garcia claims to be fine with the current situation.

In the meantime, FIU will tolerate what seemingly few other Division I schools would tolerate, a coach who clearly is not committed to his job. New York Knick fans will ask why and the answer will come in the person James Dolan. But for those of us in Miami, for whom FIU is not some afterthought or stepping stone, the why is a much more interesting question.

I did not think FIU was in a desperate situation when it hired Thomas or is in a desperate situation now, where the situation clearly calls for FIU to thank [yada yada] Thomas, but decline to be his fall back position. In Miami, FIU has the luxury of anonymity to get things right. Garcia and FIU are taking advantage of that time with Mario Cristobal and their football program.

That's why I referred to Thomas as the anti-Cristobal when they hired him. The Cristobal and Thomas hires, both by Pete Garcia, must be in the running for the most philosophically divergent hires by the same Athletic Director ever. I am a fan of the Cristobal way. Isiah Thomas represents much of what I dislike about sports. So why the two approaches?

To me, it clearly is all about the U. Garcia made a name for himself at the University of Miami. He is approaching his fourth year at FIU without upstaging the U in any of the major sports. Itching to make an impact, Garcia took a gamble with Thomas. It failed. [Who knows, maybe one of the top recruits will stay even when Thomas leaves]. But now, Thomas' constant maneuverings has made it an unforgettably bad move and Garcia appears to have all the backbone of an Obama Justice Dept official sent to investigate Black, as opposed to Golden, Panthers. Garcia partially gambled FIU's good name on basketball bling. Let's hope Garcia doesn't think the risk was worth it and his next hire is more Cristobal and less Thomas.

Please leave for New York soon, Mr. Thomas, and if it's not too much trouble, please take Loria and Samson with you.

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Schadenfreude Wet Spot

I fear that I have been granted indirect superhero powers over inconsequential people and things. I sports hated on the anti-American leftist druggie Maradona and within one month; he has one of the worst coaching performances in World Cup history, humiliates Argentina's leftist president, visits with his 2nd favorite dictator who is actually having a worse month than Maradona given that his support of FARC was exposed at a recent OAS meeting -- see Vargas Llosa article -- was dumped as Argentina's coach and now, in the most predictable ugly ending since one of Rev. Wright's parishioners declared his candidacy for the presidency, Maradona has turned on those who gave him the opportunity for which he was not qualified and did not deserve.

Dear Maradona,

You're traveling through another dimension; a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's a signpost up ahead [thanks to the ADA Act of 1990, signposts are now enano-friendly], your next stop, ... the Quinque-Cocal drug treatment center, in Holguin, 470 miles (750 km) east of Havana.

So who or what to focus on next? Dear Marlins ownership....

ESPN article referenced is copied in full at end of post.

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Chronicle of a death foretold - by Sam Kelly
Thursday, July 29, 2010

On the 26th July, workers from all walks of life took to the streets of Buenos Aires for a political march to mark the 58th anniversary of the death of María Eva Duarte de Perón, better known outside Argentina as Evita. It was fitting, in a way, that the same date was ultimately the day that sealed the fate of one of the few Argentines who can match (or exceed) Evita for popular mass appeal. Diego Maradona's reign as Argentina manager officially ended on Tuesday the 27th, but the damage was done the day before.

Julio Grondona, the president of the Argentine FA, engineered the decision to suit his own ends, having finally lost patience with Maradona's turbulent managerial style. Whether the news has been reported in your part of the world as Maradona quitting, Maradona being sacked, or whatever, make no bones about it; he was pushed. And there's no better boss in the world at pushing his staff out than Julio Humberto Grondona. In thirty-one years in charge Grondona has been the only public official of any description in Argentina to remain in office through military dictatorships and the change to democracy which brought governments of all colours to power. What's more, he's remained close to all of them. And he's done so without ever sacking a manager.

Diego Maradona's contract expired on the 30th June. That his contract talks only happened on Monday was partly his own fault. Whilst AFA directors were unimpressed with the World Cup campaign, Grondona wanted to renew Maradona's contract even against the wishes of his own board. Next year the elections for the presidency of the organisation are coming up, and Grondona seemed afraid of the political fallout should he be the man to sack the greatest and most adored figure in the history of Argentine football.

The events of the last week or so have changed Grondona's opinion somewhat, though. One reason for the delay in the meeting to discuss Maradona's new contract was that Diego took a flight to Venezuela to meet his good friend Hugo Chávez, rather than stay at home to talk. During the delay, though, he did help some form of "dialogue" along. He phoned up a TV chat show, and made his position clear; "If they even touch the kit man," he told the panel, "I'll walk." According to Maradona himself, Grondona's opening gambit in the contract talks when the two met a couple of days later was, "first of all, the kit man's got to go".

Maradona has somewhat hoist himself by his own petard in many ways, then. It wasn't only his words on that chat show - El Show Del Fútbol - that helped his bosses get rid of him. A prominent panellist on the show is Oscar Ruggeri, a man who'd never been a TV personality before this year. Ruggeri was the man Maradona had wanted as his assistant, but whom Grondona put his foot down over and wouldn't allow onto the technical team. His solution? Ruggeri got a job as a TV "journalist" and, when he travelled to South Africa in that capacity, was the only journalist Maradona allowed in to "watch" the squad train.

Not only that, but the network Ruggeri works for - and therefore the network Maradona phoned to give his exclusive bargaining plea to - is TyC Sports, the cable company. Some readers might remember them from this time last year, when the Argentine championship was delayed by a week as Grondona, backed by the government, tore up the TV contract with TyC in order to re-sell the broadcasting rights to the state-owned channels. Ever since, TyC have been heavily critical of the AFA. Maradona's choice of media outlet seemed calculated to irritate his employers.

It would also have irritated the Argentine government. Like the governments of Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay (all of whom enjoyed much better than expected World Cup campaigns), Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the Argentine president, invited her national team's manager and any players who were still in the country to attend a function at the presidential residence in Buenos Aires for a photo opportunity. After the side had been welcomed back to the country with an outpouring of support, it seemed a great chance for her to pick up a few votes by gladhanding. But her invitation was flatly ignored by Maradona, and instead Chávez was the first president he met after the World Cup.

After supporting him publicly for so long, Cristina suddenly began to feel that Maradona perhaps wasn't such a great vote-grabber after all. With Grondona also tiring of him, this was only a matter of time. And following Maradona's televised declarations, the job became simple for Grondona; ever the Godfather figure, when he finally got Maradona at the meeting on Monday, he simply made him an offer he knew he couldn't...um...accept.

So what next? Favourite for the job is Estudiantes manager (and former Sheffield United and Leeds playmaker) Alejandro Sabella, but if he stays with his club then Diego Simeone, Miguel Angel Russo, or youth team coach Sergio Batista could all come into play. Maradona, meanwhile, has offers on the table from the Mexican national team and Napoli, if rumours are to be believed. Whilst Grondona hasn't come out of this looking all that good, Maradona has at least remained true to himself; a press conference on Tuesday evening saw him continue to defend his back room staff to the hilt.

The quote on all the t-shirts that'll be on sale in central Buenos Aires by Wednesday afternoon was this: "Grondona lied to me, [national team co-ordinator Carlos] Bilardo betrayed me." Maradona's looked out of his depth a lot of the time, but the men running the side might yet find that their biggest mistake, in the long run, was putting themselves in a situation which pitched them against one of the greatest folk heroes their country has ever known. And we're not talking about Evita.
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What Gordon Solie Could Teach Major Scobie

Reading Henry Graham Greene, I get the feeling of watching someone trying to wrestle with God. His main characters bring the admirable intensity of a Dan Gable to the match, but lack the perspective of a Gordon Solie. I am an agnostic when it comes to characterizing the Soliesque perspective as either appreciating the absurd or just a professional weariness, but I know a healthy balance when I see it.

In Greene's perfectly titled novel, The Heart of The Matter - characters seem to do nothing but get to the heart of matters [the third of his four major Catholic novels] - his introspective thoughts are given voice mainly through his protagonist, Chief of Police Major Henry Scobie. Late in the novel, Greene gives us a clue as to why he wrote those type of novels.

She sat there, reading poetry, and she was a thousand miles away from the torment that shook his hand and dried his mouth. She would understand, he thought, if I were in a book, but would I understand her if she were just a character? I don't read that sort of book.

You get the idea that Greene wrote books that he wished others would write, thereby sparing himself the work. Characters who gave voice to moral concerns and reflections. After reading Greene, it's easy to see why he 'didn't read those sort of books.' How could they compare to the thoughts running through his fascinatingly descriptive, rational and decidedly unhappy mind? Just a few of the many interesting thoughts from the novel:

Why ... do I love this place [Haiti] so much? It is because here human nature hasn't had to time to disguise itself? Nobody here could ever talk about a heaven on earth. Heaven remained rigidly in its proper place on the other side of death, and on this side flourished the injustices, the cruelties, the meanness that elsewhere people so cleverly hushed up. Here you could love human beings nearly as God loved them, knowing the worst: you don't love a pose, a pretty dress, a sentiment artfully assumed.

It seemed to Scobie that life was immeasurably long. Couldn't the test of man be carried out in fewer years? Couldn't we have committed out first major sin a at seven, have ruined ourselves for love or hate at ten, have clutched at redemption on a fifteen-year-old death-bed?

He had no sense of responsibility towards the beautiful and the graceful and the intelligent. They could find their own way. It was the face for which nobody would go out of his way, the face that would never catch the covert look, the face which would soon be used to rebuffs and indifference that demanded their allegiance. The word 'pity' is used loosely as the word 'love': the terrible promiscuous passion which so few experience.

While rarely does Greene share happy thoughts, they do bring pleasure. The type of pleasure that survives beyond the moment of exposure. So while few if any of Greene's thoughts run the risk of being uttered by anyone looking to sell you something or entertain you beyond the written word, they rang true to this reader.

As a way of savoring the book, I've gathered my favorite Greene thoughts into three categories at the end of the post.

• Killer Sentences
• Masters of the Universe, Beware
• Wrestling with God

The excerpts may not mean as much to those who have yet to read the book, but are still worth reading. You understand? It's what Major Scobie could not, sah.

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The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene - excerpts

Killer Sentences

He lifted the moist hand and kissed the palm: he was bound by the pathos of her unattractiveness.

There was something defenseless, it seemed to Scobie, in his whole attitude: he stood there waiting for people to be friendly or unfriendly - he didn't seem to expect one reaction more than another. He was like a dog.

He listened with the intense interest one feels in a stranger's life, the interest the young mistake for love [ouch].

He had the sense of an animal which had been chased to its hole.

'Oh, is that all?' she asked with immense relief, and irritation at her ignorance moved like hatred unfairly in his brain.

He read somewhere that love had been invented in the eleventh century by troubadors. Why had they not left us with lust?

But if romance is what one lives by, one must never be cured of it. The world has too many spoilt priests of this faith or that: better surely to pretend a belief than wander in that vicious vacuum of cruelty and despair.

Sometimes his eyes strayed to the walls seeking a cockroach, but you couldn't have everything.

Honesty was a double-edged weapon, but intelligence looked after number one [picture a young Dyer making notes here].

It was like having a box of chocolates in a bedroom drawer. Until the box was empty it occupied the mind too much.

'Your work is more important to you than I am,' Helen said, and the banality of the phrase, read in how many bad novels, wrung his heart.

He felt as though he had exiled himself so deeply in the desert that his skin had taken on the colour of the sand.

The soda hissed in the glasses and Yousef drank greedily.

Masters of the Universe, Beware

Against the beautiful and the clever and the successful, one can wage a pitiless war [hear that Heat fans], but not against the unattractive: then the millstone weighs on the breast.

They had been corrupted by money, he had been corrupted by sentiment. Sentiment was more dangerous, because you couldn't name its price. A man open to bribes was to be relied upon below a certain figure, but sentiment might uncoil in the heart at a name, a photograph, even a smell remembered.

He had no sense of responsibility towards the beautiful and the graceful and the intelligent. They could find their own way. It was the face for which nobody would go out of his way, the face that would never catch the covert look, the face which would soon be used to rebuffs and indifference that demanded their allegiance. The word 'pity' is used loosely as the word 'love': the terrible promiscuous passion which so few experience.

What an absurd thing it was to expect happiness in a world so full of misery. ... Point me out the happy man and I will point you out either extreme egotism, evil - or else absolute ignorance [insert Ari Gold, 'boom' here].

Wrestling with God

Why ... do I love this place [Haiti] so much? It is because here human nature hasn't had to time to disguise itself? Nobody here could ever talk about a heaven on earth. Heaven remained rigidly in its proper place on the other side of death, and on this side flourished the injustices, the cruelties, the meanness that elsewhere people so cleverly hushed up. Here you could love human beings nearly as God loved them, knowing the worst: you don't love a pose, a pretty dress, a sentiment artfully assumed.

She was crying. He felt an enormous tiredness, bracing himself to comfort her. 'Darling,' he said, 'I love you.' It was how he always began. Comfort, like the act of sex, developed a routine.

It seemed to Scobie that life was immeasurably long. Couldn't the test of man be carried out in fewer years? Couldn't we have committed out first major sin a at seven, have ruined ourselves for love or hate at ten, have clutched at redemption on a fifteen-year-old death-bed?

The truth, he thought, has never been of any real value to any human being - it is a symbol for mathematicians and philosophers to pursue. In human relations kindness and lies are worth a thousand truths.

It was a formality, not because he felt himself free from serious sin but because it had never occurred to him that his life was important enough one way or another. He didn't drink, he didn't fornicate, he didn't even lie, but he never regarded this absence of sin as virtue. When he thought about it all, he regarded himself as a man in the ranks, the member of an awkward squad, who had no opportunity to break more serious military rules.

It seemed to him for a moment that God was too accessible. There was no difficulty in approaching Him. Like a popular demagogue He was open to the least of His followers at any hour. Looking up at the cross he thought, He even suffers in public. [All pause and insert a Klymaxx-type rap about how Greene's too gu-gu-good].

She said furiously, 'I don't want your pity.' But it was not a question of whether she wanted it - she had it. Pity smouldered like decay at his heart. He would never rid himself of it. He knew from experience how passion died away and how love went, but pity always stayed. Nothing ever diminished pity. The conditions of life nurtured it. There was a single person in the world who was unpitiable, oneself.

O God, give me death before I give them unhappiness.

The priests told one that it was the unforgivable sin, the final expression of an unrepentant despair, and of course one accepted the Church's teaching. But they taught also that God had sometimes broken his own laws, and was it less possible for him to put out a hand of forgiveness into the suicidal darkness than to have woken himself in the tomb, behind the stone? Christ had not been murdered - you couldn't murder God. Christ had killed himself: he had hung himself on the Cross ...

How often, he thought, lack of faith helps one to see more clearly than faith.

He thought: pious people, I suppose, would call this the devil speaking, but he knew that evil never spoke in these crude answerable terms: this was innocence.

The words of the Mass were like an indictment.

Innocence must die young if it isn't to kill the souls of men.

When he was young, he had thought that love had something to do with understanding, but with age he knew that no human being understood another. Love was the wish to understand, and presently with constant failure the wish died, and love died too perhaps or changed into this painful affection, loyalty and pity.

She sat there, reading poetry, and she was a thousand miles away from the torment that shook his hand and dried his mouth. She would understand, he thought, if I were in a book, but would I understand her if she were just a character? I don't read that sort of book.

This was what human love had done to him - it had robbed him of love for eternity. It was no use pretending, as a young man might, that the price was worth while.

All you have to do now is ring a bell, go into a box, confess ... the repentance is already there, straining at your heart. it's not repentance you lack, just a few simple actions ...

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The Meeting That Made The Decision Possible

DISSOLVE TO: A garden, somewhere outside Schenectady:

PAT O’RILEY
So ... Reinsdorf will move against you first. He'll set up a meeting with someone that you absolutely trust ... guaranteeing your ability to speak freely. And at that meeting, you'll be setup over this whole tampering business [Pat drinks from a glass of wine as Dwyane watches him]. I like to drink wine more than I used to, anyways, I'm drinking more....

DWYANE
It's good for you, Pat.

PAT O’RILEY (after a long pause)
I hope you don't mind the way I ... I keep going over this Reinsdorf business...

DWYANE
No, not at all....

PAT O’RILEY
Oh well, eh ... I want you to arrange to have a man check all the tweets that go in and out of your account because....

DWYANE
I did it already, Pat.

PAT O’RILEY
Oh, that's right ... I forgot.

DWYANE
What's the matter? What's bothering you? [Then, after the Pat doesn't answer.] I'll handle it. I told you I can handle it, I'll handle it.

PAT O’RILEY (as he stands)
I knew that James was going to have to go through all this. And Bosh, well, [he sits besides Dwyane], Bosh was, well.... But I never, ... I never wanted this ... sharing the spotlight for you. I work my whole post-LA & NY life, I don't apologize, to take care of the Arison's. And I've refused ... to be a fool [Beasley pick aside] ... dancing on the string, held by all those -- capologists. I don't apologize ... that's my life ... but I thought that ... that when it was your time ... that ... that you would be the one to hold the strings. Mutiple-MVP's Wade, first owner-player Wade, or ... something ...

DWYANE
A Lebron succeeding in Cleveland ...

PAT O’RILEY
... or a Tiger without the missing windshield ... there just weren't enough bad GM's, Dwyane. Just weren't enough bad GM's ...

DWYANE
We'll get there, Pat, ... we'll get there....

PAT O’RILEY
Uh... Now listen, whoever comes to you with this Reinsdorf meeting ... he's the traitor. Don't forget that.

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The Circus Clowns Mocking The Dancing Bears

Guest blogger, Wichi, weighs-in.

The sport media reached heretofore unthought of lows on the Lebron decision/announcement. First they fell all over themselves tweeting, commenting, rumoring, etc. Then, like jealous hyena’s forced to watch the carcass being enjoyed by a pride of lions, they screeched in unison about the pomposity of it all, the lack of tact, the hype, all of it. The very creators of the 'over-hype' (hyper-hype?) now are wondering aloud how it all got started.... Give me a break. How is James’ 60 minute special in ANY way less dignified than these journalists obsession with the chance to be 'the man' who got the scoop?

Then the hoops pundits spent most of yesterday aghast that LBJ didn’t choose THEIR pre-ordained landing spot - Chicago. Jon Barry most of all looked like he put $25k in Vegas on Chicago and lost. These experts are mocking the idea of this team being able to co-exist, win, excel, etc. Sour grapes to me. Here’s a question, How’d Team USA do in the 2008 Olympics? Exactly.

Mike Wilbon (whom I respect generally) pontificates that this "new school" athlete doesn’t stay in one place like they used in 'his day' and comments that no matter what, LBJ should have stayed with "his guys" and simply worked and worked until they won. Really? Fine. A couple questions for Wilbon; Mike, who was your first employer in the media world? Why didn’t you simply stay there and made it work? Why did you take the better jobs, the ESPN gig? Why?

One wonders if all 3 of these guys had gone to NYC if the spin wouldn't be, 'this is marvelous! This is great for the NBA, for the Mecca of basketball,' blah blah blah.... I think it would. We are seeing a subtle hoops elitism, in that only 'select' cities/franchises deserve this type of luck, dynasty or star power. Who are those select, pre-ordained children of the gods? Why LA, Boston , NYC, Chicago of course. What arrogance. What pathetic fear is now crawling through the NBA elite and media. There’s a new, very big, strong, and focused sheriff in town, and he ain’t your friend. We have heard this all before. During UM’s long dominance of college football and in 1997 when the media tried to cheapen the Marlins World Series win, e.g. too young a franchise, they bought the best players, it's not a baseball town, etc.

The saddest clown of all, Dan Gilbert. No more pathetic, desperate, whiny sports person in memory. Terribly worded letter. "Cowardly betrayal?" Oh, so if you’d wooed Wade to Cleveland you were OK with THAT betrayal since its not YOUR guy leaving? Oh, OK.... The same team that tried to get Bosh there - and thus not to stay in Toronto - is whimpering like the scorned one-night stand. Have SOME dignity Cleveland and stop acting, well, like Cleveland.

And that is the crux of it, THEY hate US. Miami is hated they way NY used to be; because of our diversity, our rise, our attitude. We saw it first with the UM Hurricanes, and in more subtle ways when the national media reports on events here. They do not think we have paid our dues.

Yes, we here in Miami aren’t classically loyal or true” or even deserving in the truest sense of the word. We have been spoiled, to tell the truth. The Marlins win a WS in their 5th year; Dolphins win a Super bowl in their 7th year; Panthers are in a Stanley freaking Cup Final after 3 years; the Hurricanes rule college football for an 18-year span (1984 -2002); We got another World Series win, another SB win, and an NBA title.

Wanna know our secret? The unspoken deal we make with our teams? We aren’t to be trifled with. We are not blindly loyal. We don’t appreciate half-assed efforts (hear that Mr. Loria?). We have a healthy balance to our sports. We don’t spend money supporting bad or average teams. Pat Riley gets it. Win or be forgotten is the mantra here. Sorry if that doesn’t meet the standards of a Cleveland / Cubs / Bills fan waiting in the cold to see a crappy team. I get it. WE get it. You’re 'tougher' than us in that sense. OK, so we’re soft, immature front-runners.

But we’re smarter.

And better.

And you simply don’t like it.

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Miami Heat and Ron Rothstein

This won't feel right unless Miami Senior High Hall of Famer Udonis Haslem stays with the Heat. But that aside, there are a few things we can be certain of today.

1. It's a mistake to compare what the Heat have done in the NBA salary cap environment to what MLB teams [Yankees and Red Sox] do when they routinely outspend competitors. Pat Riley and the Miami Heat organization's accomplishment was not clearing cap space, heck even the Knicks can do that. Their achievement involved salesmanship and professional credibility. That is much different than adding a zero to contract offers.
2. This generation of Cleveland sports fans will produce better writers than this generation of Miami sport fans. Sports-type suffering will do that.
3. Dan Gilbert is the right man to lead a hostile takeover of under performing and inefficient botánicas under the holding company, Changó's Rack. [Overheard at Changó board meetings, "do we or do we not stand behind our curses people?"]
4. This Miami Heat team will be gearing up for their 2nd year in the playoffs as the new Miami Marlins stadium opens in my Little Havana neighborhood in April 2012. Wow.
5. There may be other communities as deserving as the City of Miami for this sports-related good fortune, but none more. A little reminder of where things stood back in early 1989. This from the Sports Illustrated vault:

Life at the bottom of the Midwest Division was especially trying last week for Ron Rothstein, coach of the 4-32 Heat. After riots in Miami's Overtown section caused the postponement of the Heat's game with the Suns, Rothstein suffered a blowout just a few blocks from the disturbances. Police helped Rothstein change the tire, but the next night nobody could help Miami stop the Bulls' Michael Jordan, who flattened Rothstein's team, scoring 34 points and leading Chicago to a 112-108 victory.

My brother Fernando and I rarely missed a minute -- my cousin Ramiro once caused me to miss a first quarter [it cost us the game, check it out] against Milwaukee back in 1993, but I'm almost over it now -- let alone a game during the first six years of the Heat. Current Heat assistant, Ron Rothstein, was the coach in the beginning and we remain big fans of his. I would describe Rothstein as old school, except that term seems too hip for him. Again, like Udonis, this wouldn't feel right if he wasn't part of the Heat's future. From the sidelines, here are lineups Rothstein has and could ... witness [sorry my bad].


How can this be any better for Miami Heat fans?

The New York Knicks free agency period is being described as an "utter disaster." Bill Simmons - of whom I am a fan, but who is clearly in despair over the Heat's ascendancy - wrote [before the Lebron decision] about that franchise:

I ruled out the Knicks last week after details trickled out about LeBron's comical New York meeting, which sounded like a "Saturday Night Live" sketch because of Donnie Walsh being in a wheelchair and wearing a neck brace (he just had neck surgery), and James Dolan being James Dolan. Now the Knicks are gaining momentum thanks to the "He's coming!" buzz that drove MSG's stock price up 6.5 percent Wednesday. Where did this buzz come from? As far as I can tell, nowhere. But there's buzzing. You have to believe me. My BlackBerry practically blew up yesterday with e-mails from sports-industry friends with "KNICKS???" in the subject heading.

If he spurns them, then suddenly we're looking at the most disastrous decade in the history of New York sports -- first the Layden Era, then the Isiah Era, then Walsh spending two years gutting the team so he could spend $100 million on a guy with a bad knee and a bad eye who hasn't played defense in six years. Do you realize the Knicks will have given away top-10 lottery picks in 2004, '06, '07, '09, '10 and, potentially, '11 and '12 without making the playoffs or landing one superstar? How is that even possible?

(Important note: The fact that David Stern stuck Rod Thorn in New Jersey, Walsh in New York, David Kahn in Minnesota and Stu Jackson in Vancouver has to be added to his Wikipedia page. Like, right now. He's the Pied Piper for putrid GMs.)

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Hey Hey LBJHow Many Franchises Did You Kill Today

Hey, how many anti-Vietnam war chants can I realistically invoke on this blog.

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Maradona and Schadenfreude

Does anyone know how to contact the equivalent of the DEA in South Africa? I got one hell of a tip for them tonight.

Argentina was slaughtered in their World Cup quarterfinal match on Saturday. They surrendered -- the French are thrilled this sentence can now be written to include another country -- to the Germans, 4-0. A quick review of World Cup championship matches [including 3rd place vs 4th place finishers] with a four goal differential since 1930, yielded only one other loss of that magnitude. However, that loss by Bulgaria came at the hands of Sweden in 1994, a team seen as much superior. While this match was only a quarterfinal, both teams were considered legitimate contenders to win the Cup. If anything, Argentina's team featured more established talent - including the world's top player in Lionel Messi - while Germany's talent was considered too young before the tournament began.

So the Argentine team cracked in a historic manner on Saturday. Speaking of crack, Argentina is coached by Diego Maradona, an anti-American druggie whose urgent need for the limelight resembles a dog who continues to lick the part of the sofa where a sugary substance once resided. The dog must know it's gone, but he acts determined to bring it back, even if it means that his tongue is sacrificed in the process. In this case, Argentina's World Cup chances were the item being sacrificed so that Maradona could lick the spotlight one more time before he relapses.

This from an Argentinian fan blog before the game:

The time has come to discuss about a quarter final that is very special to all of us. The past is still very fresh and painful, and us, argentinos expect nothing else than a victory from our magnificent players.

In order to beat Germany, the coaching staff will have to calm down (Maradona), analyze and think about some important issues.

Which system to use? In my previous thread opening, I’ve mentioned some important tactical problems related to the 4-3-1-2. A system that we all obviously know very well, so it’s easy to understand what isn’t working. Against Mexico, Corea and Greece, we all noticed that:

- Germany perfectly know how to beat 4-3-1-2. They perfectly know that once they pass the Tevez-Messi-Higuain line, it won’t come back, and that the best way to beat us is to attack from the wings and use the space left on purpose by our 7-men-midfield to cross and find Klose. This is the tactical reason why we conceded one of the most hurting gol ever (2006).

Calm down? Mr Lopez [the blogger], do you understand what you are asking? A medical perspective:

"Typically, patients with cocaine overdoses in the emergency room are treated with nitroglycerin, sedatives such as Valium, and some blood-pressure medications such as calcium channel blockers and some beta blockers," Dr. Vongpatanasin said. "However, the standard treatments don’t alleviate all of the adverse effects of cocaine on the heart, blood pressure and central nervous system."

Argentina put it's World Cup hopes on Humpty Dumpty. Watch Castro and Chavez try and put him back together again.

Sensing the prospects of a collapse, I wanted to enjoy it among other World Cup fans so my day started at Fritz & Franz Bierhaus in Coral Gables. Great atmosphere for the match, but not nearly enough space for the large crowd. Thankfully, Germany scored very early on and I was surprised at how quiet the Argentina fans got for the rest of the half. I feel for the Germany fans. They seemingly root with a handicap, they mustn't be too angry or organized in their cheering.

Spreading my enjoyment, I saw the 2nd half at the Italian Sports Grill in the Fountainbleau area. I figured it was my best chance for a pro-Germany crowd. No crowds there, which was just as well. I was able to thoroughly enjoy the beating being administered to Maradona's club - 'enjoy' entails shouting insults every time the bearded midget appeared onscreen - with impunity.

Again, South African DEA, call me [making hand motion while extending thumb and little finger, curling the base and middle knuckles of the other 3 fingers].

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When Irish Eyes Are Wailing

Maybe it was the whole Eamon de Valera thing. So while I've come late to the game, I feel as though I'm getting my Irish on lately, except for the whole fighting, drinking and gregariousness thing. If Mangan's good enough for James Joyce and Graham Greene, who am I to rain on their bipolar parade. Please avoid reading the poem while alone or sober.

The Nameless One by James Clarence Mangan - 1803-1849

ROLL forth, my song, like the rushing river,
That sweeps along to the mighty sea;
God will inspire me while I deliver
My soul of thee!

Tell thou the world, when my bones lie whitening
Amid the last homes of youth and eld,
That once there was one whose veins ran lightning
No eye beheld.

Tell how his boyhood was one drear night-hour,
How shone for him, through his griefs and gloom,
No star of all heaven sends to light our
Path to the tomb.

Roll on, my song, and to after ages
Tell how, disdaining all earth can give,
He would have taught men, from wisdom's pages,
The way to live.

And tell how trampled, derided, hated,
And worn by weakness, disease, and wrong,
He fled for shelter to God, who mated
His soul with song.

--With song which alway, sublime or vapid,
Flow'd like a rill in the morning beam,
Perchance not deep, but intense and rapid--
A mountain stream.

Tell how this Nameless, condemn'd for years long
To herd with demons from hell beneath,
Saw things that made him, with groans and tears, long
For even death.

Go on to tell how, with genius wasted,
Betray'd in friendship, befool'd in love,
With spirit shipwreck'd, and young hopes blasted,
He still, still strove;

Till, spent with toil, dreeing death for others
(And some whose hands should have wrought for him,
If children live not for sires and mothers),
His mind grew dim;

And he fell far through that pit abysmal,
The gulf and grave of Maginn and Burns,
And pawn'd his soul for the devil's dismal
Stock of returns.

But yet redeem'd it in days of darkness,
And shapes and signs of the final wrath,
When death, in hideous and ghastly starkness,
Stood on his path.

And tell how now, amid wreck and sorrow,
And want, and sickness, and houseless nights,
He bides in calmness the silent morrow,
That no ray lights.

And lives he still, then? Yes! Old and hoary
At thirty-nine, from despair and woe,
He lives, enduring what future story
Will never know.

Him grant a grave to, ye pitying noble,
Deep in your bosoms: there let him dwell!
He, too, had tears for all souls in trouble,
Here and in hell.

Those strike me as the words of a man who understands his very Irish Catholic faith. I'm guessing this poem won't make it onto a Joel Osteen PowerPoint presentation anytime soon.

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Cuba: Those Who Speak Outand the Catholic Cardinal Who Won't

Every now and then, someone in the political arena make a point so seemingly simple and effective, you wonder how the other side can rebut it. I thought that the WSJ columnist, Mary Anastasia O'Grady, made one in addressing the issue of whether to lift the U.S. ban on travel to Cuba. She wrote:

With so much risk involved, any policy change will depend heavily on being able to trust the motives of U.S. leaders. Recall that it was Nixon who went to China. That's why efforts to change policy that are being led by the current crop of Democrats make so many Americans uneasy. After all, if Mr. Peterson wants to boost commerce why not push for passage of the Colombia free trade agreement? Why is he so interested in doing business with a dictator?

The congressman she was referring to, Minnesota Democrat Collin Peterson, opposes the Colombia free trade agreement.

O'Grady also brings into question the actions of the Roman Catholic cardinal from Havana, Jaime Ortega:

... Several sources reported to me that the Roman Catholic cardinal from Havana, Jaime Ortega, was on a secretive trip to Washington last week to lobby for an end to the travel ban. ... Other sources said that the cardinal reached out to members of Congress....

... if Cardinal Ortega has decided to intervene on behalf of the regime's needs, it would not be surprising. He has long been viewed by human-rights advocates—such as former political prisoner Armando Valladares, a practicing Catholic—as more a tool of the regime than a champion of the oppressed. A kinder assessment of the cardinal suggests that he's trying to boost the Church's power on the island. In either case, acting as an emissary to Washington right now would make sense.

Many people I know and read, who pay much closer attention to Cuban politics, have been similarly critical of Cardinal Ortega for a while now. Having the example of John Paul II's time as a bishop and cardinal in Communist Poland, I've always thought that since we really don't know what's going on behind the scenes, I should extend someone like Ortega the benefit of the doubt.

No more. If the Church in Cuba had been biding its time for the right opportunity to protest openly, it's hard to believe people of good faith would not have stepped forward in the past few months. So while my faith guides the motivation to extend the benefit of the doubt, it also also teaches me that priests are human too. Sometimes appearances are not deceiving. So aside from Cuba's many other misfortunes, having Catholic leadership which is more whiskey-type priest than a Wojtyła-type priest, is yet another.

The O'Grady article referenced is copied in full at end of post.

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Why Lift the Travel Ban to Cuba Now?
Waves of Canadian, European and Latin American visitors haven't changed a thing. - by MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY - JUNE 28, 2010

Today marks the one-year anniversary of the Honduran Supreme Court's decision to order the arrest of Manuel Zelaya, a power-hungry Hugo Chávez acolyte who tried to remain president for life.

It's something to celebrate: Thanks to the bravery of the court and the Congress, which voted to remove him from office, democracy was saved.

Yet a nagging question remains: Why were the Obama administration and key congressional Democrats obsessed, for seven months, with trying to force Honduras to take Mr. Zelaya back? Why did the U.S. pull visas, deny aid, and lead an international campaign to isolate the tiny Central American democracy? To paraphrase many Americans who wrote to me during the stand-off: "Whose side are these guys on anyway?"

Such doubts about the motivations of the party in power in Washington will be hard to ignore this week as the Democrats try to put U.S. Cuba policy back on the legislative agenda. Specifically, Minnesota Democrat Collin Peterson will try to pass a bill in the House Agriculture Committee that would lift the U.S. ban on travel to Cuba without any human-rights concession from Castro.

The end of the Cuba travel ban would mean a bonanza in tourism to the island at a time when Fidel and Raúl are in desperate need of new revenue. But the push to lift the ban has anti-Castro supporters too. They argue that it is isolation that preserves the dictatorship and that a barrage of gringo tourists would weaken the dictatorship.

Proponents of the ban point out that a wave of European, Canadian and Latin American visitors since the mid-1990s hasn't changed a thing. They worry that American sun-seekers will only prop up a dictatorship that is most famous for slave labor, jailing dissidents and sowing revolution in the hemisphere.

With so much risk involved, any policy change will depend heavily on being able to trust the motives of U.S. leaders. Recall that it was Nixon who went to China. That's why efforts to change policy that are being led by the current crop of Democrats make so many Americans uneasy. After all, if Mr. Peterson wants to boost commerce why not push for passage of the Colombia free trade agreement? Why is he so interested in doing business with a dictator?

The dictatorship is hard up for hard currency. The regime now relies heavily on such measures as sending Cuban doctors to Venezuela in exchange for marked-down oil. But according to a recent Associated Press story, "Cuba's foreign trade plunged by more than a third in 2009," perhaps because Caracas, running out of money itself, is no longer a reliable sugar daddy. A sharp drop in nickel prices hasn't helped, and neither did three hurricanes in 2008, which devastated housing.

Cuba owes sovereign lenders billions of dollars, according to the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami, and according to a June 23 Reuters report, it is so cash-strapped that it had "froze[n] up to $1 billion in the accounts of 600 foreign suppliers by the start of 2009."

Now there is a serious food shortage. This month the independent media in Cuba reported that a scarcity of rice had the government so worried about civil unrest that it had to send police to accompany deliveries to shops.

This has the regime scrambling. Several sources reported to me that the Roman Catholic cardinal from Havana, Jaime Ortega, was on a secretive trip to Washington last week to lobby for an end to the travel ban. One of his meetings was rumored to be with the State Department's assistant secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Arturo Valenzuela. The State Department declined to tell me if this was true or not.

Other sources said that the cardinal reached out to members of Congress, including House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman and his staffer Peter Quilter. I queried Mr. Berman's office but got no reply. Regular readers of this column know Mr. Quilter's politics. As I reported in April, he traveled with Sen. John Kerry's staffer Fulton Armstrong to Tegucigalpa to warn Hondurans who backed the removal of Mr. Zelaya that they are still in the doghouse.

While Castro relies on the embargo to explain Cuban poverty, he does, it seems, badly need gringo tourism, which he could control. And if Cardinal Ortega has decided to intervene on behalf of the regime's needs, it would not be surprising. He has long been viewed by human-rights advocates—such as former political prisoner Armando Valladares, a practicing Catholic—as more a tool of the regime than a champion of the oppressed. A kinder assessment of the cardinal suggests that he's trying to boost the Church's power on the island. In either case, acting as an emissary to Washington right now would make sense.

But for those interested in Cuban freedom it is bizarre. For the first time in history the Castros are cornered. Yet rather then negotiate from a position of strength, Democrats seem to want to give relief to the dictatorship.

Write to O'Grady@wsj.com
Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A19
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Northern Ireland's Example For Cuba

Opening lyrics to the U2 song, Sunday Bloody Sunday:

I can't believe the news today
Oh, I can't close my eyes and make it go away
How long, how long must we sing this song?
How long? How long?
'Cause tonight we can be as one, tonight

Those lyrics are about an incident in Northern Ireland where British troops shot and killed Catholic civil rights marchers in 1972. There was some closure to that incident recently when an inquiry [Bloody Sunday] begun in 1998 by the British government culminated in a statement of apology from British prime minister David Cameron in the House of Commons on June 15th 2010. The reaction from U2 lead singer, Bono, in a New York Times Op-ed:

Thirty-eight years did not disappear in an 11-minute speech — how could they, no matter how eloquent or heartfelt the words? But they changed and morphed, as did David Cameron, who suddenly looked like the leader he believed he would be. From prime minister to statesman.

Joy was the mood in the crowd. A group of women sang “We Shall Overcome.” There was a surprising absence of spleen — this was a community that had been through more than most anyone could understand, showing a restraint no one could imagine. This was a dignified joy, with some well-rehearsed theatrics to underscore the moment.
...
Figures I had learned to loathe as a self-righteous student of nonviolence in the ’70s and ’80s behaved with a grace that left me embarrassed over my vitriol. For a moment, the other life that Martin McGuinness could have had seemed to appear in his face: a commander of the Irish Republican Army that day in 1972, he looked last week like the fly fisherman he is, not the gunman he became ... a school teacher, not a terrorist ... a first-class deputy first minister.

The best way I can summarize what happened, for those of us who don't know much about the history there, is to compare it to an event in US history. Suppose the US Marshals and federal law enforcement sent to ensure that James Meredith could attend the University of Mississippi had ended up attacking civil rights workers. This from Bloody Sunday Inquiry Report:

2.1 Londonderry in January 1972 was a troubled city with a divided society, in a troubled and divided country. Throughout much of Northern Ireland there were deep and seemingly irreconcilable divisions between nationalists (predominantly Roman Catholic and a majority in the city) and unionists (generally Protestant and a majority in Northern Ireland as a whole). In general terms the former wanted Northern Ireland to leave the United Kingdom and unite with the rest of Ireland, while the latter wanted it to remain part of the United Kingdom.

2.2 This sectarian divide, as it was called, had existed for a long time. Among other things, it had led in the years preceding Bloody Sunday to many violent clashes between the two communities and with the police, then the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). The police had become regarded by many in the nationalist community not as impartial keepers of the peace and upholders of the law, but rather as agents of the unionist Northern Ireland Government, employed in their view to keep the nationalist community subjugated, often by the use of unjustifiable and brutal force.

2.3 On 14th August 1969, after there had been particularly violent clashes between civilians and the police in Londonderry, the authorities brought into the city units of the British Army as an aid to the civil power, in other words to restore law and order. The British Army was in the city in this role on Bloody Sunday.

Now it wouldn't take much imagination for those of us with a Cuban background to identify with the U2 lyrics above. After taking the time to learn about 'the troubles' in Northern Ireland with more of a historical perspective -- provided mainly by Norman Davies amazing book on Europe -- I wouldn't attempt to make that comparison. Cuba is fortunate compare with Northern Ireland. Why? Cuba's problem is communism, a terror-based totalitarian form of government with an impressive string of failures to its credit. Norman Davies on the mother of all Commie collapses:

The Soviet Union was not, like ancient Rome, invaded by barbarians or, like the Polish Commonwealth, partitioned by rapacious neighbours, or, like the Habsberg Empire, overwhelmed by the strains of a great war. It was not, like the Nazi Reich, defeated in a fight to the death. It died because it had to, because the grotesque organs of its internal structure were incapable of providing the essentials of life. In a nuclear age, it could not, like its tsarist predecessor, solve its internal problems by expansion. Nor could it suck more benefit from the nations whom it had captured. It could not tolerate partnership with China which once promised a global future for communism; it could not stand the oxygen of reform; so it imploded. It was struck down by the political equivalent of a coronary, more massive than anything history affords.

The generation who advocated and in whose interests it remains to perpetuate communism in Cuba are about to die off. The Raul Castro era represents bypass surgery. Thankfully -- in keeping with the analogy -- strokes, heart attacks, graft failures, and serious bleeding are likely to follow. So Cuba will likely get a chance to hit a reset button in the not so distant future, while Northern Ireland can only dream of that type of opportunity. Their struggles run much deeper.

I look forward to the day when I will be 'embarrassed over my vitriol towards those I've learned to loathe.' To quote another U2 lyric, "a change of heart comes slow." For now, being aware that my faith asks for much more than that, is where I'm at. Learning about the strife which affects their homeland, adds to my appreciation and understanding of the people behind U2. It also means that I now know where I want to see them in concert next. The day they play in Cuba, the day they play Bloody Sunday in Cuba, their thoughts will likely run to Londonderry and 'The Troubles,' I know mine will.

In case there are others whose knowledge of the Northern Ireland issue resembles mine, I've outlined what I learned about the history of Ireland and Northern Ireland from the Davies book at the end of the post. Please click on the "read more" below to see the outline.

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History of Ireland excerpted from the Norman Davies book on Europe:

• 432 - Ireland was evangelized by St Patrick, a Roman citizen from western Britain and disciple of St Germanus. At Tara in Meath he confronted the High King, Laoghaire, kindled the paschal fire on the hill of Slane [in case you too think you've heard of Slane before, you have, so prepare to be elevated -- by the way if you think Edge is wearing a Mickey Mantle shirt, you're an ol' piece of ... -- JC] and silenced the Druids.
• 563 - Irish missions, a counter-measure to combat the inroads of barbarians, began with the arrival of St Columba on Iona. Irish monks followed practices which were out of step with Rome. Major problems were to arise in reconciling Celtic and Latin traditions.
• Tenth century - While the English battled the Danes, the rest of the British Isles witnessed a long, complex struggle between Vikings and Celts. Irish end up ruling the whole of Ireland for 150 years.
• 1534 - Henry VIII declared himself 'King Of Ireland.'
• 1598 -The Kingdom of England was targeted for reconversion in a campaign that spawned the Forty Catholic martyrs led by St Edmund Campion. Ireland was confirmed in Catholicism, especially after the brutal Elizabethan expedition.
• 1602 - Cormack McCarthy, Lord of Blarney in County Cork repeatedly delayed the surrender of his castle to the English through an endless series of parleys, queries, and time-wasting speeches. With McCarthy's act of defiance, 'Blarney' passed into common parlance as a synonym for the 'gift of gab.'
• 1611 - Planting of a Scottish Presbyterian colony in Ulster.
• 1641 - A Scots army arrived in Ireland to protect their Protestant co-religionists; multi-sided warfare proceeded unchecked during the 'English Civil War.'
• 1649-51 - Ireland brutally conquered and annexed by Cromwell.
• 1691 - Protestant supremacy was bolstered within the British Isles by draconian laws which denied Catholics the right to office, property, education, and intermarriage.
• 1707 - Ireland was excluded from the Union of the Kingdoms of England and Scotland. The two were previously separate states but with the same monarch. That created the 'United Kingdom of Great Britain.' While Ireland retained its own Parliament, it was still subject to the king's ministers in London.

Davies details the effect that exclusion had on Ireland:

Unlike Scotland, Ireland was not allowed to benefit from free trade with England. Unlike Wales, it did not experience any any sort of national or cultural revival. With the sole exception of Protestant Ulster, where Huguenot refugees started the prosperous linen industry, it did not participate directly in Britian's industrial revolution. A rising population made rural distress a fact of life. The famines of 1726-9 and 1739-41 foreshadowed the disaster of the 1840s.

• 1761 - Ferocious 'Whiteboy' gangs made their appearance in the countryside.
• 1798 - Reform movement led by Henry Flood and Henry Grattan failed.
• 1801 - Ireland forcibly incorporated into the United Kingdom through the second Act of Union. Promised Catholic emancipations are postponed for thirty years.
• 1829 - The Catholic Association of Daniel O'Connell achieved religious toleration, e.g. allowed to buy land.
• 1845 through 1849 - Irish potato famine caused one million deaths and drove another million to emigrate. Reduced population of the island of 8.2 million by 25%. Sufferings of the Famine included witnessing corpses in the field and children dying in the workhouse, while grain continued to be exported to England under guard.
• 1858 - Irish Republican Brotherhood formed.
• 1879 - Land League formed to protect rebellious tenants from government -backed landlords. Absentee landlords had typically used the military to enforce evictions. The military customarily razed or 'tumbled' the houses of defaulters.
• 1880 through 1912 - Irish Home Rule was supported by Gladstones ruling Liberal Party at various stages, but three different efforts were blocked in the House of Commons.
• 1890s - Cultural awakening of the Irish was evidenced by the founding of the Irish Literary Theatre, the Gaelic Athletic Association and the Gaelic League.
• 1905 - Sinn Fein formed.
• 1914 - Onset of World War I pushes back determination on Irish Home Rule. Millions of Irish serve in the British army.
• 1920 - Ulster turned into autonomous province of the UK.
• 1922 - Irish Free State formed after Irish defeat British paramilitary group, the 'Black and Tans.' The dominant personality, and many times Premier, Eamon de Valera, was a half-Cuban Catholic born of an Irish mother in New York City [hey Grady, how do ya like dem apples].
• 1937 - The Free State, a national republic, declared itself the Republic of Eire.
• 1949 - Ireland severed all ties with Great Britain. The Irish Constitution treated the counties of British Ulster as an integral part of the Republic. But the IRA was regarded as an illegal organization on both sides of the border.

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