Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog

While Milwaukee burns

August 16, 2016

Culture
M.D. Kittle reports on the weekend riots in Milwaukee:

Protesters – angered after a Milwaukee police officer shot and killed an armed, black robbery suspect – burned six businesses, threw rocks and bricks at police injuring four officers, and damaged or destroyed seven police vehicles, according Barrett.

“Last night was unlike anything I’ve seen,” Barrett said. “I hope I never see it again.”

Killed was 23-year-old Sylville K. Smith, a man with a long and violent rap sheet. Body camera footage showed Smith was carrying a handgun loaded with 23 rounds, police said. He out-armed the officer who shot him. The officer appeared to have acted according to procedure in discharging his weapon

“He had the gun with him and the officer fired several times,” Barrett said. Smith was shot in the arm and chest, the mayor said during a press conference.

Police said the handgun he carried was stolen during a burglary in nearby Waukesha in March, according to CNN

“The victim of that burglary reported 500 rounds of ammunition were also stolen with the handgun,” police said.

His police record includes a charge of first-degree recklessly endangering safety. The charge was dismissed after the victim refused to go to court. Smith was charged with victim intimidation in 2015. That charge also was dismissed.

Barrett tried to placate angry community members, who called for the release of the officer’s body camera. But the investigation is now in the hands of state investigators. Wisconsin was the first state in the nation to put on the books a law requiring an independent investigation anytime there is a law-enforcement related shooting.

[Gov. Scott] Walker, Barrett and others commended police, saying they showed remarkable restraint in not firing any shots during the riots. A 16-year-old was injured when a stray round from a crowd struck her. The teen’s injuries were described as non-life threatening.

Mike Crivello, president of the Milwaukee Police Association, said the union denounces the suggestion by community members, and some city leaders, that the department is teeming with racism. Police say the officer who shot the armed suspect is black. They had not released his name as of Sunday afternoon.“

Our ranks are broad and diverse; derived from all God’s children. These officers deserve respect and support. Support which must begin with leadership – mayor/alderpersons, police chief, and community!” Crivello wrote in a statement.
“Leadership must denounce violent riotous behavior! There can be no appropriateness in rationalizing terrorist-like actions,” the union chief added. “The good families, beautiful young children, living in the neighborhoods where police were attacked and buildings burned certainly did not sleep well last night; how could they, when will they? The thugs that caused this are certainly terrorists and must be held accountable.”

Saying Milwaukee police are “under siege,” Crivello in his press release included a video clip of angry, black men shouting at Milwaukee police.

“We cannot cohabitate with white people,” one unidentified speaker said. “We want blood. We don’t want peace or justice.”

Alderman Khalif Rainey blamed the “powder keg” of Milwaukee on rampant racism.

“Something has to be done to address these issues,” he said. “The black people of Milwaukee are tired; they are tired of living under this oppression, this is their life.”

Crivello said he, Milwaukee’s peace officers, and law-abiding citizens have had enough excuses. He called on Milwaukee voters to stop supporting any elected official who “does not unequivocally support the law as written, while ensuring enforcement.”

“Our police force is under staffed – our officers forced to work alone. We must be assured of Permanent Two-Man Squads. … We must adequately [immediately] address the staffing deficit!! Our family deserves to know their loved one has a fighting chance to come home after each tour of duty,” the police union chief wrote.

Smith’s father, Patrick, spoke to WITI-TV (channel 6) in Milwaukee, and started to say the expected things …

“What are we gonna do now? Everyone playing their part in this city, blaming the white guy or whatever, and we know what they’re doing. Like, already I feel like they should have never OK’d guns in Wisconsin. They already know what our black youth was doing anyway. These young kids gotta realize this is all a game with them. Like they’re playing Monopoly. You young kids falling into their world, what they want you to do. Everything you do is programmed. … They got us killing each other and when they even OK’d them pistols and they OK’d a reason to kill us too. Now somebody got killed reaching for his wallet, but now they can say he got a gun on him and they reached for it. And that’s justifiable. When we allowed them to say guns is good and it’s legal, we can bear arms. This is not the wild, wild west y’all. But when you go down to 25th and Center, you see guys with guns hanging out this long, that’s ridiculous, and they’re allowing them to do this and the police know half of them don’t have a license to carry a gun. I don’t know when we’re gonna start moving.

… only to say something unexpected:

I had to blame myself for a lot of things too because your hero is your dad and I played a very big part in my family’s role model for them. Being on the street, doing things of the street life: Entertaining, drug dealing and pimping and they’re looking at their dad like ‘he’s doing all these things.’ I got out of jail two months ago, but I’ve been going back and forth in jail and they see those things so I’d like to apologize to my kids because this is the role model they look up to. When they see the wrong role model, this is what you get. … I’ve gotta start with my kids and we gotta change our ways, to be better role models. And we gotta change ourselves. We’ve gotta talk to them, put some sense into them. They targeting us, but we know about it so there’s no reason to keep saying it’s their fault. You play a part in it. If you know there’s a reason, don’t give in to the hand, don’t be going around with big guns, don’t be going around shooting each other and letting them shoot y’all cause that’s just what they’re doing and they’re out to destroy us and we’re falling for it.”

Sylville Smith’s sisters said similar things:

“I lost my brother. I can’t get him back. Never. Never. That’s pain. I can’t look him in the eye no more,” Smith’s sister Sherelle said.

“At the end of the day, acting out ain’t gonna solve it. Ain’t gonna solve nothing for Sylville. The city went crazy (Saturday) night over Syville. We tired of it. We tired,” Kimberly Neal, Smith’s sister said.
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Presty the DJ for Aug. 16

August 16, 2016

Music
Today in 1962, the Beatles replaced drummer Pete Best with Ringo Starr. Despite those who claim Starr is the worst Beatle musically, the change worked out reasonably well for the group.

Today in 1970 was the second day of Woodstock:

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Trump vs. Ripon College

August 15, 2016

Culture, US politics
Ripon College president Zach Messitte, a former CNN producer before he entered the academic world:

As a political scientist and president of a liberal arts college in Wisconsin, I’m looking forward to the fall. I’ll have a chance to teach 18- to 22-year-olds during the run-up to a historic presidential election. It’ll likely dominate discourse in the classroom, cafeteria and even keg parties.

This raises the question — how should professors talk about Donald Trump? Is there a way to teach this subject in a thoughtful way, pushing beyond the name-calling and apocalyptic predictions? I believe there is.

In conversations with my faculty colleagues, I’ve come to a few conclusions.

First, I think it’s fine for professors to acknowledge Trump’s narrow-minded rhetoric. If Trump were a student, he would have already been called into the dean’s office to explain comments about women, minorities, immigrants, veterans and people with disabilities. My college’s core values celebrate and protect differences of perspective, background and heritage. Relationships on college campuses are supposed to be friendly, welcoming and supportive. (In Trump’s worldview, however, it is precisely this kind of academic environment that has led to the United States’ general decline. “I don’t, frankly, have time for total political correctness,” he said. “And to be honest with you, this country doesn’t have time, either.”)

Second, I hope our faculty spends some of the fall semester explaining Trump’s political rise to their students, because the real story lies beyond political science. Understanding Trump and his supporters means having a deep knowledge of words like “empathy,” “tolerance,” “power” and “narcissism.” History, literature, economics, philosophy, religion, communications and sociology all offer important insights. One of my psychology department colleagues told me that students will be very tempted to take their newfound knowledge and apply it to the Republican nominee’s bizarre behavior, though the American Psychiatric Association just warned its members not to do so. Another professor in the communications department said she plans to hold a class discussion on Trump’s discourses, focusing on how he speaks to people’s fears and creates an illusion of identification and credibility for voters.* There will be assigned readings.

I know some professors and students think it might be easier to just avoid the subject of Trump altogether. But we need to resist that urge. Professors should dive right into the big question: How can we be open-minded in the face of Trump’s bigotry? How can we extend that empathy and thoughtfulness even to those we disagree with?

We need to extend these qualities to the victims of Trump’s bigotry. But we also need to listen and respect those students and professors who support Trump. That 19-year-old supporter just starting his sophomore year shouldn’t be dismissed automatically as a racist for supporting Trump. He’s a stand-in for our next-door neighbor, your child’s softball coach and my cousin’s spouse. Keeping the classroom open for discussion slows a student retreat to the anonymous online world of Yik Yak, where college-aged Trump supporters troll hate without ever directly engaging their classmates. That means that the possibility of ever broadening their perspectives organically will be lost.

There will be tense points and tempers may well flare. Why are Trump’s most ardent supporters rural whites without a college degree? Why does he belittle those he disagrees with? Where does his worldview and his preoccupation with Vladimir Putin come from? But there is a way to have these discussions in the classroom with respect. It will be up to our professors to defend the right to hold an unpopular position, even one that we strongly disagree with. Because if colleges and universities want to remain a training ground for future leaders, an incubator for new ideas or a place where a future political consensus is forged, civil discourse is a fundamental part of that higher calling.

This will not be an easy task, but it is a crucial one. While professors and administrators need to do everything they can to make sure that their campuses promote free speech, they also need to maintain civility and basic decency. And that’s tricky. Beyond higher education, how the nation wrestles with this same conundrum is important — and not just in the run-up to the election. In the weeks and months after Nov. 8, the country is going to have to understand what Donald Trump and Trumpism means going forward. Win or lose, it is critical that we study and interpret what his candidacy signifies beyond American politics. How the nation’s teachers integrate understanding Trumpism into their classrooms this fall, regardless of discipline, will go a long way toward finding some common ground with the 40-something percent of the voting population that supports him.

Campus Reform took what Messitte wrote and put a substantial negative spin while adding:

Despite his apparent hostility toward Trump, Messitte does urge students and faculty to listen respectfully to their classmates and colleagues who support Trump, though according to a Harvard survey, only 25 percent of Millennials say they are likely to vote for Trump, whereas 61 percent would vote for Hillary Clinton in a head-to-head contest.

Faculty support for liberal candidates is even more staggering, with 99.51 percent of political contributions at top liberal arts colleges going to Democrats. Among those who donated to presidential campaigns, contributions averaged $1,043.75 for Hillary Clinton and $323.73 for Bernie Sanders.

Messitte’s most objectionable statement is his assertion that “If Trump were a student, he would have already been called into the dean’s office to explain comments about women, minorities, immigrants, veterans and people with disabilities.” (Where to begin?) There can be a fine line between free expression and being a jerk. Such an experience could bring home the real-world lesson that the First Amendment need not apply to the private sector, and sometimes it’s better to keep your mouth shut and express your opinions in the polling booth than in public.

On the other hand, to put on my cynical face for a moment, one wonders if as a tuition-dependent college (as most private colleges are) Ripon College would really expel from campus one of its students who, using this example, comes from a rich family of potential future college donors.

Beyond that, perhaps it’s because, unlike the Campus Reform writer, I have actually spoken face to face with Messitte, but I have a hard time getting wound up about this. Perhaps it’s that in five years at UW–Madison I argued, when I thought it was worth doing, non-liberal points of view in classes and was not expelled from the university. I know present and former Ripon professors, and yes, many are quite liberal. It is safe to assert as a 13-year resident of Ripon that Ripon College is certainly the most liberal thing in Ripon.

If you actually read Messitte’s column, or previous opinions he’s written, you’d read that he is actually a defender of free speech, unlike some other college administrators. (See Shalala, Donna, “speech codes.” By the way, Shalala was mostly great for UW–Madison with one major exception, along with not firing football coach Don Mor(t)on immediately upon arriving in Madison.) Is the objection that professors are liberal (and they mostly are), or that they hate Trump? If it’s the latter, the population of Trump haters is much, much larger than college professors.

Readers know that I am not a believer in the echo chamber. I have made appearances in such non-conservative places as Wisconsin Public Radio, the Sly radio show(s), and The Scene tabloid. I don’t think your viewpoint gains anything by talking only to people with whom you mostly agree. Your views do not necessarily make you correct, and you certainly won’t find that out unless you find someone with whom you don’t generally agree and try your persuasive skills.

As someone who worked in higher education for a college probably as liberal as Ripon College (and my former employer is my favorite employer in my career), I see complaints about liberalism in academia and education as reflecting a certain lack of faith in your own parenting skills and in your children’s reasoning skills. Just like when I was growing up, I have had discussions in the Presteblog world headquarters about things our kids have learned in school, and if they seem to me inaccurate I point that out. Ultimately it’s up to them to decide which views are correct, though I always have the ability to assign dishwashing duties until Armageddon.

One also wonders sometimes whether objections to the liberalism of college professors are motivated by concern over constitutional rights, or opposition to constitutional rights expressed differently from your own. Freedom of expression has to apply to everyone, or it means nothing.
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“… the chief business of the American people is business”

August 15, 2016

US business, US politics
Calvin Coolidge famously said, “After all, the chief business of the American people is business. They are profoundly concerned with producing, buying, selling, investing and prospering in the world.”

With that in mind, CNBC reports:

Apple CEO Tim Cook struck back at critics of the iPhone maker’s strategy to avoid paying U.S. taxes, telling The Washington Post in a wide ranging interview that the company would not bring that money back from abroad unless there was a “fair rate.

Along with other multinational companies, the tech giant has been subject to criticism over a tax strategy that allows them to shelter profits made abroad from the U.S. corporate tax rate, which at 35 percent is among the highest in the developed world.

The move complies with the letter of the law, if not the spirit, as a few particularly strident critics have lambasted Apple as a tax dodger. The nonprofit Citizens for Tax Justice estimates that big companies have parked more than $2 trillion offshore,which is subject to more favorable tax rates.

While some proponents of the higher U.S. tax rate say it’s unpatriotic for companies to practice inversions or shelter income, Cook hit back at the suggestion.

“It is the current tax law. It’s not a matter of being patriotic or not patriotic,” Cook told The Post in a lengthy sit-down. “It doesn’t go that the more you pay, the more patriotic you are.”

Cook acknowledged that Apple was effectively taking advantage of a massive tax loophole, which he said was perfectly legal.” “The tax law right now says we can keep that [profit] in Ireland or we can bring it back.”

Cook added that it was up to Congress and the president to enact tax reform, which he is “optimistic” will take place sometime next year.

The CEO’s comments are all but certain to stoke a new debate over taxation during an already contested election cycle. Republican White House contender Donald Trump recently unveiled an overhauled tax plan that, among other things, lowers the corporate rate to 15 percent from the current 35.

However, Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton—who enjoys the backing of Cook, Warren Buffett and other billionaires—has staked a case on higher taxes for the wealthy, but envisages a series of fixes that would try to discourage companies from moving abroad, or avoiding U.S. taxes.

It’s not as if the tech giant is exactly hurting for money. Apple is sitting on at least $200 billion in cash on hand, a massive accumulation that some investors have called on the company to re-invest.

Cook added that “when we bring it back, we will pay 35 percent federal tax and then a weighted average across the states that we’re in, which is about 5 percent, so think of it as 40 percent. We’ve said at 40 percent, we’re not going to bring it back until there’s a fair rate. There’s no debate about it.”

The U.S. corporate tax rate has been a subject of vigorous debate. Critics say the code rife with distortions that critics say discourages companies from repatriating capital, and lead to strategies like “inversions” that encourage firms to merge with foreign companies, and move operations abroad to avoid higher taxation.

Cook insisted Apple was no tax dodger, and pointed out that the company earns most of its money abroad.

“We pay our share and then some,” the CEO told The Post. “We didn’t look for a tax haven or something to put it somewhere. We sell a lot of product everywhere.”

The European Union has also taken aim at Apple for taking advantage of Ireland’s tax structure, which is the lowest in Europe, with the European Commission probing allegations that the tech giant landed a “sweetheart tax deal” with the country.

Many multinational companies have flocked to the Emerald Isle for tax purposes. Cook told The Post that Apple hasn’t done anything any other company hasn’t, and said the basic argument was really a matter of tax arbitrage.

Cook said there was a “tug of war going on between the countries of how you allocate profits,” saying people “really aren’t arguing that Apple should pay more taxes. They’re arguing about who they should be paid to.”

The correct answer to Cook’s last question is: No one. Whatever business spends its profits on — reinvestment into the business, more pay for employees, more dividends for shareholders or some combination thereof — is vastly preferable to giving money to Govzilla at any level. The benefit of business as a provider of goods and services, an employer and a community member should mean business should not pay any profit taxes at all.

Apple and every other business that avoids taxes is fulfilling their first duty as a business — to maximize returns for their owners. You want to get that money back into the U.S.? Cut their taxes. No taxes, no tax breaks, and no lobbying for tax breaks.

Cook’s statements reveal the wasted opportunity of the Republican Party in this election. Eight years of high taxes and Government Knows Better Than You regulation have created our current craptacular economy of minimal growth and unemployment and inflation the government isn’t telling you about. Every business person in America should be voting for Republicans, but they won’t because of the continuing clown show that is Donald Trump, an embarrassment to American business and politics. Silicon Valley should be sending millions of dollars in contributions to GOP candidates, but the party’s excessive focus on social issues means that won’t happen either.
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Presty the DJ for Aug. 15

August 15, 2016

Music
We begin with an interesting non-musical anniversary: Today in 1945, Major League Baseball sold the advertising rights for the World Series to Gillette for $150,000. Gillette for years afterward got to decide who the announcers for the World Series (typically one per World Series team in the days before color commentators) would be on first radio and then TV.

(more…)
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Presty the DJ for Aug. 14

August 14, 2016

Music
The number one song today in 1965:

Three years later, the singer of the number one song in Britain announced …

Today in 1976, Chicago released what would become its first number one single, to the regret of all true brass rock fans:

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Presty the DJ for Aug. 13

August 13, 2016

Music
The number one song in Britain today in 1964 was brought back to popularity almost two decades later by the movie “Stripes”:

That same day, the Kinks hit the British charts for the first time with …

This was, of course, the number one song in the U.S. today in 1966:

That same day, KLUE in Longview, Texas, organized the first “Beatles Bonfire,” where Beatles fans offended by John Lennon’s recent “bigger than Jesus” comment could throw their records to be burned.

The next day, KLUE’s tower was struck by lightning.

Additional respect for free speech came from Rev. Thurman H. Babbs of New Haven Baptist Church in Cleveland, who suggested that Beatles fans be excommunicated.

(more…)
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The former Appleton Fox and the former Prince of Milwaukee

August 12, 2016

Sports
Two baseball news items sadly chronicle my advancing age.

First: Today is the final day of the baseball career of Alex Rodriguez.

I saw Rodriguez before he was “A-Rod.” Rodriguez’s baseball career began in Appleton in 1994, after he was drafted by the Seattle Mariners. We saw him at Goodland Park in Appleton, playing for the Foxes, one year before the Foxes became the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers and moved to Fox Cities Stadium, and 15 years before the Timber Rattlers became an affiliate of the Brewers.

Rodriguez had quite a 1994 season. He started with the Foxes, then right after we saw him was promoted to Class AA, then to the parent Mariners. Just before the season-ending strike Rodriguez then was demoted to Class AAA so he could keep playing. One year later, he was on the big club for good.

Rodriguez undoubtedly will go down as one of the most famous Foxes/Timber Rattlers (the franchise dates back to 1942). Whether he becomes one of the three ex-Foxes named to the Baseball Hall of Fame depends on how Hall of Fame voters view the players of the steroid/PED era of baseball, such as Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire.

Rodriguez is also a symbol of the wacky finances of pro sports, including Major League Baseball. After coming up with the Mariners, Rodriguez signed with the Texas Rangers for $252 million over 10 years. Four years later, the Rangers traded him to the Yankees, and four years after that he signed a 10-year $275 million contract.

Speaking of the Rangers, the Dallas Morning News reports:

Three sources close to the situation confirmed Tuesday that [Prince] Fielder’s career is over after a decade in the majors due to a pair of disk herniations in his neck. An official announcement will be made Wednesday afternoon in Arlington where, presumably, Fielder, still in a neck brace from his second spinal fusion surgery in the last 27 months, will address the decision.

Fielder, 32, will be declared “medically disabled,” as doctors will not clear him to return to baseball over the perilous risk to his spine from the two cervical fusions, according to sources. The Rangers were aware of this possibility at the time he underwent the surgery in July. Teammates such as Adrian Beltre said at the time they were “shocked” over the development. In that regard, the news Tuesday, which broke about an hour before a 7-5 win over Colorado, wasn’t a complete surprise to his teammates, but was depressing nonetheless.

“I don’t know exactly what he is going to say, but his family has to come first,” Beltre said Tuesday after acknowledging that he’d known the situation was dire. “If he’s pushed out of baseball at 31 or 32, that’s tough to swallow. We know how talented he is. But he has to do what is right for him and his family.”

He is due to receive the full remaining value of his contract, roughly $104 million through 2020, unless the sides work out a retirement settlement. The Rangers will be responsible for $44 million of it, Detroit $24 million and another $36 million will come via an insurance policy the Rangers inherited when they traded Ian Kinsler for Fielder after the 2013 season. The Rangers will receive 50 percent of their annual $18 million salary commitment to him via the claim.

As big as those figures are, they still seem a little bit menial when it allows a father of two boys – one a week shy of his 12^th birthday and another a rambunctious 10-year old – to actively partake in their growth. It will also allow Fielder to continue to grow his marriage to his wife Chanel, with whom he celebrated his 10-year anniversary on the day the surgery was announced. Fielder has often said that they were kids when they got married and they were kids having kids. They made mistakes together, but still grew a close-knit and also extended family. …

He simply can’t play baseball anymore. His neck won’t allow it without a significant risk of impaired mobility – or worse. It is not a weight issue; as Rangers personnel told me, his neck didn’t carry the burden of carrying his weight. It is more a function of a violent, jerky swing that created incredible force on baseballs, but also incredible torque on the neck.

It seems unthinkable that he has gone from being one of the most durable players in baseball to incapacitated in three years. He played 157 or more games from 2006 until the Rangers traded for him after 2013; only after he experienced some neck stiffness and weakness in his arms two months into the 2014 season. After a sad end to his tenure in Milwaukee and two unhappy years in Detroit, the recovery from the surgery gave him time to rediscover how much he enjoyed playing. He responded with a .305 season and 23 home runs in 2015, but struggled all this season before the latest herniation was discovered.

Fielder, of course, came up with the Brewers, and was part of the 2008 and 2011 playoff teams.

MLB.com gives the Milwaukee perspective:

Drafted seventh overall by the Brewers in 2002, Fielder hit .282 with 230 home runs 656 RBIs over parts of seven seasons in Milwaukee. He ranks third on the franchise’s home run list behind former teammate Ryan Braun and Hall of Famer Robin Yount, is sixth in club history with 439 extra-base hits and seventh in RBIs. Among players to make at least 2,500 plate appearances in a Brewers uniform, Fielder ranks first with a .929 OPS and a .390 on-base percentage.

Fielder’s 50 home runs in 2007, 141 RBIs in 2009 and 114 walks in 2010 are single-season franchise records. His 87 extra-base hits in ’07 tied Yount’s record from 1982, when Yount was American League MVP. Fielder owns the top two seasons in franchise history for home runs, the top two seasons for OPS, and the top three seasons for walks. He’s also the only player in franchise history to play all 162 games in multiple seasons.

“I remember one day I was doing the Kenny Macha show,” Brewers broadcaster Bob Uecker said, referring to the former Brewers manager. “Macha tells me he was giving Prince a day off. I said, ‘You haven’t told him yet?’ He said, ‘No, but I’m going to.’

“I looked at him and I said, ‘Kenny, I can tell you right now, that ain’t gonna happen. He might kick your [rear end].’”

Sure enough, Fielder played that day. He set a Brewers record by playing in 374 consecutive games from 2008-2012 before sitting out a game in Houston with the flu. Fielder was so sick that the Astros team doctor administered intravenous fluids, and Fielder still lobbied for a spot in the lineup.

When he did return to action, Fielder started a new streak that spanned 547 games and three teams — the Brewers, the Tigers (who signed him to a free agent mega-contract in January 2012) and the Rangers (who traded for Fielder in November 2013). The 547-game streak, which ended with the onset of his neck woes, is the 25th-longest in Major League history.

“He played so hard all the time,” Uecker said. “If he hit a bouncer back to the mound, he ran his butt off. Every time. That’s the one thing that people should remember about Prince, and I think once people sit back and read this, they will say to themselves, ‘That is right.’ He always ran hard. He played hard. I just liked him, and I appreciated what he did. I played. I know what it is.

“I’m sad, I really am. I talked to him in the spring when they came over the play in Maryvale. We had a really good talk about his family and himself and how good he felt, and how things were going to be better. It didn’t happen. But he’ll always be one of my favorite guys.”

One doesn’t necessarily think of hustle when considering 275-pound (according to the Rangers’ roster, and that might be 30 or so pounds light) baseball players. But Fielder clearly was a team leader for the Brewers, and an enormously clutch player on teams that most seasons had just two power threats, Fielder and Ryan Braun.

Doug Russell adds:

“The doctors told me that with two spinal fusions, I can’t play Major League Baseball anymore,” an overcome Fielder said, flanked by sons Haven and Jayden on one side and agent Scott Boras on the other. “I just want to thank my teammates, all the coaches. I’m really going to miss being around those guys. It was a lot of fun. I’ve been in a big league clubhouse since I was their age, and not being able to play is tough.”

We’ve seen Fielder jubilant and stoic. Until Wednesday, we had never seen tears.

Someday, Fielder will certainly have a Brewers Wall of Honor plaque outside of Miller Park; he already meets several of the criteria, any of which would provide for his enshrinement. Perhaps one day he will have a Walk of Fame induction ceremony at Miller Park as well. As an elector, I plan to vote for him the year he becomes eligible.

After all, his 230 home runs rank third on the team’s all-time list, but his name is littered all over their offensive leaders’ all-time top-ten lists. Fielder is sixth in extra base hits; seventh in RBI’s, eighth in total bases, and ninth in runs scored and career batting average.

Simply put, Prince Fielder is Milwaukee Brewers royalty.

Prince was never a guy who said more than he needed to when there microphones and cameras around. Perhaps he felt betrayed by reporters who wanted to fish around his strained relationship with his father, former MLB slugger Cecil Fielder. Perhaps he was just shy around people he didn’t really know well.

But that’s okay. He was never rude. He just didn’t say much, at least not until the cameras and recorders were gone, and he became the heart and soul of the Milwaukee clubhouse. Craig Counsell called him one of the most influential players he had ever been around.

“I’m sad,” Counsell said shortly after Fielder made his announcement. “The game never lets anybody go when they completely want to, but for somebody like him, he should still be in the middle of a great career. It’s sad that it has to happen like that.”

“It’s heartbreaking for him,” former Brewers teammate Ryan Braun agreed. “I remember how hard he competed. I think he played the game as hard and competed as hard as anybody I ever had on my team. He’s a guy who never wanted to come out of any game, played through so many injuries, wanted to play every inning of every game.”

My generation of Brewers fans had Robin Yount and Paul Molitor. A previous generation had Hank Aaron, Warren Spahn, and Eddie Mathews.

Millennial Brewers fans have Prince Fielder and Ryan Braun.

Life will go on for Prince Fielder and his family; After all, he’s just 32 years old. But a part of him – the athlete part – died on Wednesday.

And even though he had been gone for a half-decade from Milwaukee, a part of Brewers history died too.

Fielder left the Brewers after their last playoff season, 2011. Before that the Brewers decided to give Braun a huge contract and not Fielder, which probably foretold Fielder’s departure. (As it is, Fielder will get $102 million to no longer play baseball.) I think a majority of Brewers fans understood the decision, though, upon looking at Fielder, who already was larger than his father, Cecil, and seemed unlikely to get smaller. Both Fielders basically had bodies meant for the designated hitter position, and indeed both ended up as DHs. (And hit exactly the same number of home runs, 379.)

That, of course, demonstrates the reality of small-market baseball. The Brewers traded for pitchers C.C. Sabathia (2008) and Zack Greinke (2011), but couldn’t keep them. The Brewers developed pitcher Yovani Gallardo, but traded him away because what rebuilding team needs a number one pitcher? (One of the three players for whom Gallardo was traded, Corey Knebel, is with the Brewers; pitcher Marcos Diplan has a 4.62 ERA in Brevard County, Fla.; and infielder Luis Sardinas is already gone, traded to Seattle (and designated for assignment Thursday) for outfielder Ramón Flores, currently batting .202 for the Brewers.) The Brewers traded for outfielder Carlos Gomez, but didn’t keep him either, in part because he’s sort of an underperformer (now batting .210 for Houston). The Brewers developed catcher Jonathan Lucroy, but he’s gone too.

When you have little margin for error, as the Brewers have due to their poor finances, you have to be superior in developing players, particularly since you seem destined to not be able to keep them. The Brewers did not successfully develop anyone to replace Fielder, as evidenced by their playing 24 first basemen since he left. The replacement was supposed to be Mat Gamel, but he (1) missed nearly two seasons due to the same injury, (2) was a butthead according to his minor league manager. and (3) ended up hitting exactly six home runs in his major league career. Then the Brewers acquired Mark Reynolds, who in a 130-game season (platooned with ancient former Brewer Lyle Overbay) had more strikeouts (122, which you’ll note is nearly one per game) than hits (74, for a batting average of .196), and had the unlikely stat combination of 22 home runs and 45 runs batted in. (At least the 2000s answer to Dave Kingman apparently isn’t a jerk like Kingman famously was.) The Brewers did acquire left-handed first baseman Adam Lind one year late, and after a decent season (.277, 20 HR, 77 RBI, .820 OPS) traded him away for three minor leaguers after last season.

The sad irony is that had the Brewers held on to Fielder, this column would be about the end of Fielder’s career with the Brewers. Their current first baseman, Chris Carter, has Reynolds-like stats (.217, 25 HR, 61 RBI, .782 OPS, and by the way 143 strikeouts in 109 games). Carter is claimed to have brought stability to first base, but as someone in his seventh big-league season, well, what you see is what you (are going to) get. The Brewers’ Class AAA first baseman, Andy Wilkins, is now with the Brewers despite hitting just .238 in Colorado Springs; at 27 and in the majors for the second time, he seems unlikely to have a very long career. The Class AA first baseman, Nick Ramirez, is also 27 but hasn’t gotten to the majors yet, and with a .197 batting average he probably never will.

The best first baseman in Brewers history is either Fielder, the aforementioned career leader in OPS who hit 230 home runs in seven seasons, or Cecil Cooper, who hit 201 home runs in 12 seasons with the Brewers, including the team’s first seven winning seasons. After them would be George Scott (for whom Cooper was traded in one of the best trades in Brewers history), who hit 115 home runs in five seasons of some bad Brewers baseball. (Scott hit 36 home runs and drove in 109 in 1975. The Brewers still finished 68–94.) After Prince, Coop and the Boomer? Take your pick.
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What Would Chicago Drive?

August 12, 2016

Music, Wheels
Right on time for Chicago’s appearances in Appleton Saturday, Rockford Monday and Madison Tuesday, Motor Trend interviewed Chicago trumpet player Lee Loughnane:

While Chicago has celebrated 49 years music that has spoken to several generations, and was just inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Lee Loughnane considers his BMW M5 the first real rock-star car he’s ever owned.

“I don’t know if I ever considered myself getting a rock star car, I just got a car to drive around in. I wasn’t going, ‘I’m a rock star, I’m doing this.’ I always felt, ‘I’m a musician and I’m having a great time on the road,’” he says. “And now it’s 50 years later, and I’m going , ‘Oh my God, I still get to do this.’ Now I got a rock-star car with the M5. I definitely consider that a rock-star car.”

He gives his 2008 BMW M5 a perfect 10. “I was looking for a 5 series and there was an M series sitting in the parking lot that was used and for sale. That was after I (drove) the 5 series, it was a 530 or 540,” Loughnane says.

Loughnane test-drove the used 2004 BMW M5 and the salesman suggested taking it up to 70 and then hitting the brakes. “It stopped on a dime, straight as an arrow, there was no swerving at all. I went, ‘Yeah, this is pretty nice,’” he says. “I started driving it around, taking it too fast for particular corners and that sucker would move around the corners with no problem at all. So it really hugged the road nice. It’s a great car. Unbelievable.”

He bought the used 2004 M5 back when he was living in California and that sold him on the model, so four years later Loughnane got a new M5 in 2008. That M5 is his current daily driver.

“I still only have about 40,000 miles on it,” he says , laughing. “This one I’m probably going to drive into the ground, I have what – 200-300,00 miles to go? This one does the same thing however, so I knew that all the M5s were going to be as good,” he says.

He’s planning on keeping this M5 for the long haul but his son has other ideas. “My son wants me to get a new car. He keeps looking at cars on the highway and wants me to get new stuff, and I’m, ‘I’m happy with this, it’s paid off. Come on!’” he says.

The M5 has a nickname. “I call it the Batmobile because it’s so fast off the line. It’s 500 horsepower. It’s fast, it’s like a rocket ship. The biggest problem is I don’t really get to put it through its paces because you can only do 80 miles an hour. I do five miles an hour over the speed limit because I’ve gotten a couple of tickets for doing too much. I’ve had it up to 90, but I don’t want to keep getting tickets, so I don’t do it. But it definitely deserves to be driven and it’s not fair that I can’t put it through its paces. Maybe I should take it down to Bondurant or something when I have some time off,” he says. “We work a lot. And then when I’m home I’m raising my son, taking him back and forth to school and stuff in that car.”

Clearly the M5 is the car that …

I have never driven an M5, but I did drive a 1994 540i with the six-speed once. To say that was nice is a gross understatement, though when a former coworker mentioned the $125 oil changes BMW sells for his 3-series … well, I’ve never had a car whose oil change costs $125.

The story also mentions Loughnane’s first car, first purchased car and favorite drive:

Loughnane grew up in Chicago, where he learned to drive in a 1960 Ford Fairlane 500, “With those big wings in the back, you could you hurt yourself if you ran into those.”

His dad bought it for him for $400 and he passed his driver’s test in it as well. “I was raised in Elmwood Park, city streets. It wasn’t highway driving but there were people going different speeds all at different times, so it was getting used to all that stuff. He didn’t want me borrowing his car anymore. The first night I took it out I got into a fender bender,” he says, with a laugh.

Loughnane drove it to the South Side that night. It was raining and he was too close to the car in front. “He stopped, I hit the brakes, but the brakes weren’t great at the time, we had to get the brakes fixed, and I ran into the guy in front of me,” he says, with a laugh, mimicking his voice back then. “Dad! I had an accident!”

His dad got it for him as his high school car and a neighbor helped teach Loughnane to drive. “My next-door neighbor actually took me out in his stickshift and started teaching me some of that stuff. It wasn’t all that often, but I remember him putting me in the car and teaching a few things about it,” he says. “I met my first wife in California. She had a stick shift, that’s how I learned to drive stick shift, with those hills, learned how to put the emergency brake on it or you slide all the way down the hill.”

Since it was just meant to be his high school ride, Loughnane says the Fairlane “wasn’t that great of a car. On a scale of 1 to 10 I give it about a 4 or 5. It was just a car to be driving around and it gave me independence.”

He adds, it was a good car to learn to drive on, “Figuring out the right side of the road, how to stay in the lane, because looking off the right fender, it always looked like you were closer to that side of the road than you actually were.”

First car bought

Loughnane was one of the founding members of Chicago and by 1971 he was living in Malibu when he bought his first car, a new Pontiac Firebird. “We had made some money with the band at that time, so I was able to buy a car,” he says. “We had a couple records out, we were doing pretty good.”

Comparing it now to his M5 it wasn’t that great, he says, but back then it got him where he needed to go. “I went everywhere in it – practice, to dinner, everywhere, to the airport. And I loved driving though Malibu canyon with it, it was great, with those turns,” he says.

He kept it for a while until one day when he was on the 405 freeway when he got into an accident. “We were coming home from a tour and I remember Robert (Lamm) and Jimmy (Pankow) were in the car with me, and when the cops came up to the scene, they put us in separate areas so we couldn’t practice our story,” he said. ‘They talked to us individually, we all came up with the same story, and they let us go home. They realized it was the other guy’s fault. He had stopped on the highway, you couldn’t tell right away, about 200 yards ahead of us.”

Loughnane got rid of the Firebird after that accident. “I don’t remember what I bought after that,” he says, with a laugh. “I might have bought the CJ-7. By that time, it had the rotating hubs in the front you had to get out to put it into four wheel drive.”

His mid-1970s CJ-7 came in handy for his Malibu life then. “I had a lot of fun with that car because I put a winch on the front of it. It wasn’t good for the radiator, it heated it up for long drives, but just driving around the city and up to my house, I had a house on the top of a hill in Malibu. It was on a dirt road, and the dirt was clay, so when it got wet, it turned to – like ice,” he says, laughing.

It was tough to navigate the dirt road when it rained. “The tires went around it one time, the tires would kick up with the clay and you had no more traction after that,” he recalls. “So if you hit the brakes, you’d slide whatever way the road was graded, so you just had to keep going straight if you could.”

When he did get stuck, the winch helped get him out.

Favorite road trip

Loughnane’s favorite drive is one he does often, driving the two hours from his Sedona home to Phoenix and back. “It’s just really pleasant. I just have a good time doing it. It’s comfortable, the car is great, and I love the drive, I love the scenery. I wish I could take it through its paces more, but I can’t without getting pulled over,” he says, with a laugh.

The route he takes is I-17 north. “It’s running errands, it’s going to the airport to go on the road, for a one-nighter we’ll take a plane over to the gig, play the next day and then the day after that we fly back home, so I just leave my car at the airport,” he says. “If my son has something to do in Phoenix, we’ll drive down there in that. Airport, shopping, there’s more shopping in Phoenix than there is in Sedona, a small town.”

On the drive, Loughnane usually listens to Real Jazz on SiriusXM. “They play some of the greatest stuff,” he says. “I usually listen to jazz and make phone calls. I can catch up on a lot of business too.”

One wonders if Loughnane thinks to himself on one of those I–17 runs …

Loughnane came up with one of the funnier lines in Chicago’s (ridiculously overdue) Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction when he listed the three things he said have never failed him — his trumpet, his lungs and his bandmates — and then added, “I want to thank all my ex-wives for making sure I have to keep working.”
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Presty the DJ for Aug. 12

August 12, 2016

Music
Today in 1968, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and John Bonham played together for the first time when they rehearsed at a London studio. You know them as Led Zeppelin:

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