As the Indignant children get older, they inevitably have more and more activities. So, the Indignant Wife and I have joined the millions of American parents who put on our little black hats and chauffer our kids to ballet practice, and play dates, and sports. Waiting for the kids is boring, but there are books and smartphones and the like. What you don’t think about are the pain in the ass parents.
The girls are currently enrolled in gymnastics classes near our home on the Northern Suburbs of Chicago. The facility is excellent (except it always smells of two-week-old sneakers), and the girls love it. The youngest one has her class first, then the Indignant Older Daughter has her class.
The first session is OK; I usually read the Sunday papers or watch the older girls work on homework while taking occasional looks at the 3-year-old. But while the 6-year-old is in class, we are treated with two parents that the wife and I discuss who is the more annoying.
First, we have Summer, a not unattractive woman who has two kids. However, she is the stereotypical “North Shore” yuppie woman; you know, the kind you love to hate. At the first session she regaled everyone with how she lives in a great area of Evanston; her husband was studying for a law degree and she works at various healthcare agencies. Since none of these “jobs” would allow her to live where she says she does, I have to assume that she, her husband, or both come from money. Every comment by Summer and other two women in this conversation (not including the Indignant Wife) who she had just met, wasn’t small talk – it was a “can you top this” bragging session. Each week, we learn more about Summer and her views on life, the universe and everything, which are inevitably inane and not at all important. I feel sorry for her kids, who seem more like props in Summer’s “look at me” reality television show occurring in her own mind.
She drives me crazy, but the Indignant Wife’s hackles come up when one of the fathers show up. A nondescript guy in jeans and a t-shirt, he is obviously trying to act the part of Jim Belushi. He has a comment for everything and an opinion on it all. He and Summer duke it out for control of the conversation while I sit behind them trying not the throw up and wishing I lived in Arizona where a person can carry a concealed gun.
The man (he introduced himself to me last Sunday, Chris I think, but I’m trying to forget) starts up conversations and if he hears any conversations in his immediate vicinity, he has to butt in and show his obvious command of the topic. Since of course, I am the true personification of the commercial’s “Most Interesting Man in the World,” I let him speak on, not wanting to get drug into the conversation in which I would be forced to prove my obvious intellectual superiority (and of course, I would do so in the nastiest way possible to make sure he knew I was trying to insult him – at which point the Indignant Wife would kick me and be mad at me for the rest of the day).
Oh well, three more weeks and then hopefully I’ll be rid of these two insecure cretins.

I’m taking next week off from work and unless something huge happens next week, I’m going to rest the computer for a week as well. I will be back the week of November 28th.
I hope that everyone has a safe and happy Thanksgiving.

I never would expect Major League Baseball to be the sports league to be out in front in terms of labor peace, especially with Commissioner Bud “Head in the Sand during the Steroid Years” Selig in charge. But I have to tip my hat to them – in a year when the NFL had a useless lockout that benefitted very few, the NBA of course sees its’ season on the precipice of being completely cancelled, and the NHL on its last year of its CBA, baseball negotiated quietly and the sides got a deal done.
The players and owners have reached a tentative verbal agreement on a five-year labor contract and hope to have a signed deal by next week. The sides hope to sign a memorandum of understanding in time to announce the agreement Monday or Tuesday. The new deal has been agreed to almost three weeks before the old agreement was set to expire on December 11.
The agreement is the first for the union since Michael Weiner succeeded Donald Fehr as head last year, which might explain some of the ease of the deal. Donald “No” Fehr was an outspoken critic of anything the owners did, and if he were still in charge, I wonder if the negotiations would have gone so smoothly? (Unfortunately, with Fehr now heading the NHL Players’ Union, I fear for the possibility of getting a new deal done in hockey.) The baseball deal gives baseball 21 years of no labor stoppages by either side since the 1994-95 strike.
Under the agreement, there will be a new restraint on the amount of money a team spends each year to sign selections from the amateur draft, with teams going over a threshold being penalized with a type of luxury tax. In addition, there will be a separate restraint on the amount of money spent to sign international amateur free agents from nations such as the Dominican Republic, Venezuela and Cuba. There also will be a committee established to review the system for international signings, leaving open the possibility of a new system during the term of the deal.
Negotiators also worked to lower the percentage of major league free agents who require the highest form of draft pick compensation for the teams losing them.
The biggest news for the fans appears to be that there will soon be an extra wild-card round to the playoffs. The extra round will be one game, winner take all. According to one analysis I saw, teams with 89 victories would have an easier time to get into the playoffs, compared with the 92 win average that current playoff contenders won.
I don’t know if this is a good thing – baseball has joined the other major sports in allowing so many teams into the postseason that the regular season is meaningless, and since the only way that the leagues have improved that ratio is by expansion, and in this economic climate, expansion is not a possibility. Add to that the fact that there are few cities left large enough to expand to. But the average fan should be generally pretty happy that the sides have agreed.
Now, can we get the NBA and NHL owners to drink the same Kool-Aid the baseball sides have been drinking?

It’s only a matter of time now; soon NBA Commissioner will have the same hang dog look that was on the face of NHL Commissioner Gary “The Count” Bettman had on February 16, 2005, when he announced the cancellation of the entire season. Unlike Bettman however, Stern’s NBA is in much stronger financial position than the NHL was in 2004, and so, the hard line will cause more harm. Like Bettman though, both have owners who have good financial reasons to be happy for a season cancellation. However, the NBA has a bigger fan base than the NHL, and there will be repercussions because it is hard to win in the court of public opinion when you can’t carve up a multi-billion dollar pie in the midst of the worst global recession since the Great Depression. Fans get to save their money, and it may be VERY difficult to get those fans back..
By now, everyone knows that the NBA Players Association has rejected the NBA’s proposal and will file a disclaimer of interest to enter the failed collective bargaining agreement talks into the courts system. In effect, the NBA Players’ Union will take the same tact as the NFL union – decertify as a union and then sue the league as individuals. Union leader Billy Hunter said a suit against the NBA will come in the “next two days
NBA Commissioner David Stern was quoted on Chicago Tribune.com saying the players “seem hellbent on self-destruction and it’s very sad” and predicted the league was headed for a “nuclear winter.” Adding that he was “terribly disappointed,” Stern said, “This is a negotiating tactic. It’s not going to work. They should have done it a long time ago.” In interviews over the weekend, Stern said if the union moved to decertify, he would void all player contracts, which would also lead to litigation.
All told, there are teams in financial trouble – Milwaukee, Charlotte, Memphis, New Orleans, and Phoenix; and there are teams like Sacramento who have been looking to leave town, and a year without basketball is yet another year closer to ending a non-profitable lease.
As in most of these labor standoffs, both sides are at fault, but, as seems to be the case recently, the ending of a collective bargaining agreement is seen as a chance by the owners to crush the unions. The season has been held hostage, but just because the season is cancelled, it won’t mean that it’s smooth sailing for 2012. A lot will depend on the legal maneuvering and any rulings that occur in the courts. One thing is certain, the negotiations will get uglier and at this point, a 2012-2013 season is also in jeopardy, as is the entire league.
The players and fans, of course, are the losers, and even though they think they’re winning, the owners are losers too. Are there any winners in this? Yes – the NCAA, having a really tough year, will have basketball to itself all winter. Ratings should increase if not soar. The other winners, the NHL, who will be the only winter professional league. Hockey fans didn’t have a real option in most places when they cancelled their season; certainly not televised. But the NHL’s CBA is ending after this season, and there’s no promise that the NHL will be any smarter than they were six years ago.

First, I have to take to task the writers and pundits who said nothing much before the Penn State – Nebraska game last Saturday, but then blasted all involved for not cancelling the game. What would that have proved? Yes, the allegations against former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky are very serious, and more important than football; but the accused are being investigated, those who were silent have been or are in the process of being reprimanded or fired including Penn State Head Coach Joe Paterno and University President Graham Spanier. Cancelling the game would have hurt the players and the fans who had nothing to do with the child sex abuse scandal.
Since I posted last week, Assistant Coach Mike McQueary, who reportedly saw former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky raping a young boy, reported it to Paterno and did nothing else, has been placed on paid administrative leave. (Of course, he didn’t stop the encounter and he didn’t call the police, even after Paterno and Spanier did nothing.) In addition, the president of The Second Mile, Jack Raykovitz, a practicing psychologist who had led the group for 28 years, resigned. Not related, the Big Ten Conference took Paterno’s name off its championship trophy.
Chicago Tribune columnist David Haugh has been one of the best writers locally in describing the weird/ugly side of the Penn State situation. Sunday, he filed a report on last weekend’s game that made me sick to my stomach. He started the article with an interview with Grant Crawford, a 48-year-old engineer and 1983 Penn State alum.
“The media got Joe Paterno fired,” wrote Haugh quoting Crawford, “the media is out of control in this country. They ruined Sarah Palin, and now they’re trying to ruin Paterno. JoePa probably made a poor judgment, but he didn’t cover anything up.” Crawford’s wife, Treva, walked with her husband holding up a white poster board that read, “Screw The Media.”
Haugh noted that “they (the Crawfords) were welcomed with cheers and high-fives before Penn State’s 17-14 loss to Nebraska that was memorable for the wrong reasons.” Like the riot that ensued after Paterno got fired, many fans in the stands last Saturday along with the Crawfords, obviously proud members of their local Tea Party, show an alarming attitude toward the victims of Jerry Sandusky, accused sexual predator.
Like the Tea Party, and like the Roman Catholic Church in their own child sex abuse scandals, there is a ton of concern for embryos before they are born (or have even grow enough to have a consciousness), but a callous disregard for the children once they’re born. Protect the fetus, says these people, but once they’re born, if their parents don’t have health insurance, let them die. If they commit a capital crime, let’s kill them.
They are only children, placed here for our amusement. The young ones for sexual pleasure; then they get to grow up, tortured, but they get to grow up and abuse kids themselves. The NCAA jumps in when the kids get to college age; allowing the universities to suit up teenagers to perform for our entertainment, unpaid until recently, and make billions of dollars on them. As I’ve noted many times, the NCAA even gets to cash in on the athletes after they graduate since they own their likeness in perpetuity. The only ones not getting a cut on this are the athletes.
Haugh wrote that Crawford proudly held up a sign that proclaimed, “JoePa Got Screwed.” No Grant, some helpless kids got screwed, perhaps a lot of them. The media didn’t grab one kid in Happy Valley, Pa., and the media didn’t tell Penn State authorities to cover the whole situation up. (Neither did the media ruin Sarah Palin; she did most of the damage by opening her ignorant mouth.) No, Jerry Sandusky apparently used his charity to feed his sexual obsession toward young boys. And JoePa and Spanier and McCreedy covered it up, not Tom Brokaw or Mike Wallace. (Nor did Limbaugh or O’Reilly either, to be “fair and balanced.”)
Mr. Crawford – your sign and actions say a lot about you and a number of Penn State fans. And, it ain’t pretty.

We have heard of professional athletes have relatives kidnapped and ransomed, but this may be the first time that a player has been kidnapped. Washington Nationals catching prospect Wilson Ramos was abducted by gunmen from his home.
Ramos, a 24-year-old who just finished his rookie season in the big leagues, was taken away in an SUV by four armed men in Santa Ines in central Carabobo state. Ramos just started the winter baseball league season, playing for the Aragua Tigers.
A person close to Ramos’ family, who asked not to be quoted by name out of safety concerns was quoted by the AP and SI.com, said the catcher was at home with his father and brothers when several men “entered the house and took him away.” “As of this hour, there has been no contact” between the kidnappers and Ramos’ family, the person said. The government stated that they will undergo a full fledged hunt for Ramos and his kidnappers.
As a rookie in 2011, Ramos batted .267 with 15 home runs and 52 RBIs in 113 games. He also threw out 19 of 67 runners attempting to steal a base, a 28 percent success rate that ranked third among qualifying catchers in the National League.
The abduction appeared to be the first case involving a Major League Baseball player, but in Venezuela, the families of wealthy athletes have been periodically targeted by kidnappers in hopes of a hefty ransom.
In November 2009, the then 56-year-old mother of now retired pitcher Victor Zambrano, had to be rescued in a “commando-style operation” after a three-day kidnapping ordeal. Zambrano’s mother was abducted nine days after the former pitcher’s cousin, Richard Mendez Zambrano, had been kidnapped and later killed. In June of that same year, Colorado Rockies catcher Yorvit Torrealba’s then 11-year-old son and brother-in-law were kidnapped and released a day later. The mother of former player Ugueth Urbina, who was a two-time All-Star pitcher, spent more than five months in captivity until she was rescued in early 2005. Around the same time, the mothers of five Brazilian soccer players were abducted in Brazil, including those of star strikers Robinho and Luis Fabiano.
We might think that this is isolated to other countries, times are so hard here that if I were a professional athlete, I would spend a bit more on security for me and my family. Many already spend a lot to protect wives, girlfriends and children, but mothers, fathers and siblings are also vulnerable. Remember Antoine Walker and family members of former Bull Eddy Curry were robbed at gunpoint within weeks of each other in 2007. How long will it be before someone more enterprising decides to ransom off a player or a member of his family?

First, my apologies to my favorite composer, Pete Townshend.
The Penn State story came to an eventual time last night – even though Joe Paterno wanted to retire at the end of the season, the university’s board of trustees fired Paterno and President Graham Spanier. In light of the child-sex abuse scandal that has gripped the university.
As I wrote here yesterday, I believed that there was no way that Paterno should be allowed to finish the season. Despite being the winningest coach in Division I football history, he clearly did not do enough when he was told that former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky had been seen having sex with an under-aged boy. And now, the 46-year career of Joe Paterno is history, and all of the good that Paterno did is tainted.
While Paterno has not been charged in the case, Sandusky has been charged with molesting eight boys over 15 years, and Senior Vice President for Finance Gary Schultz and Athletic Director Tim Curley were indicted on charges that they failed to report the abuse and committed perjury in their related grand jury testimony.
In the “two wrongs don’t make a right” column, when word of the firings spread, thousands of students flocked to the administration building, shouting, “We want Joe back!” and “One more game!” The students then headed downtown to Beaver Avenue, where about 100 police wearing helmets and carrying pepper spray were on standby. Witnesses said some rocks and bottles were thrown, a lamppost was toppled and a news van was knocked over, its windows kicked out.
I generally don’t find too much blame with the students – they’re kids; they don’t know better. And I understand that to many of them, Paterno is like a grandfather. He is an icon, but he did what all of the others did, he chose the university over the kids. Believe me, the students wouldn’t be rioting if they had been abused, or their brothers.
Part of the university experience is growing up and learning how to think. Let’s hope the (probably small percentage of) the rioters take a few moments today to understand that young lives are MUCH more important than a football program, or personal reputations