As this is written, Roger Clemens is testifying before Congress over alleged human growth hormone use. Clemens has denied all of the charges since they became public in former Senator George Mitchell’s report to baseball on performance enhancing drug use in the sport in the 1980s and 1990s. Clemens’ former trainer Roger McNamee says that he injected HGH and steroids into the fastballer in 1999, 2001 and 2002. The claims have forced Clemens to sue McNamee for slander and the trainer to counter sue.
The biggest question that the mainstream media keeps throwing around is whether this damages Clemens’ legacy and whether he should be voted into Baseball’s Hall of Fame. Similar allegations and Congressional stonewalling has kept Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro, hitters of 568 and 512 home runs respectively out of Cooperstown, the only eligible members of the 500 home run club not to be enshrined. Similar allegations have created a public relations nightmare for baseball commissioner Bug Selig and all-time home run champion Barry Bonds, who may find himself shut out of the Hall when his time comes.

Now, I’m a purist, and the whole “Steroids Era” makes me sick. It is the cheating at the highest levels, and my first reaction is to ban them all forever. “Strike their records from every book, every Elias Sports Bureau report, and every Bill James statistical analysis,” claims my inner voice (somehow sounding remarkably like the voice of Sir Cedric Hardwicke in “The Ten Commandments” saying to “strike the name of Moses from every temple, etc…”). And worse is the fact that so many athletes who happen to have played in this era who did not use any performance enhancing drugs will be lumped in with all of the people who did. But in reality, all of those players should be in the Hall of Fame. Baseball, in the complicity of Selig, the owners, and Union head Donald Fehr, allowed it all to happen, and drugs weren’t illegal in baseball until the collective bargaining agreement of 2002, and there is no medical, forensic proof that any of these guys took the steroids (the only exception being Palmeiro who, after proclaiming under oath to Congress that he had never taken steroids, failed a drug test the following season). No matter how compelling the hear-say; no matter how convincing the testimony of witnesses, without vials of tainted blood, the players cannot be convicted in a court of law, and that should be the standard. (However, any players who test positive after 2002 can be disciplined.)

So why does this sports purist think that they should all be in the Hall of Fame? Because the criteria is ludicrous. The voting members of the Baseball Writers Association of America (“BWAA”) are instructed to judge each candidate on “ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contribution to the team or teams on which he played, as well as to baseball in general.” It is ridiculous to hold any player to such a standard, using the words “integrity and sportsmanship” when one of the first members of the Hall of Fame was Ty Cobb.

While Cobb’s career was certainly outstanding; he still holds the record for number of career batting titles won with 12 and has the highest career batting average among player eligibility rules (.366); he was an SOB who we know for a fact rushed into the stands to assault a fan. On May 15, 1912, Claude Lueker was heckling Cobb and the two exchanged words for most of the game. On reportedly calling Cobb a “half-nigger” (and with the egging on of teammates, Cobb stormed the stands and started beating the man. The catch: Lueker had lost one hand and three fingers of the other hand in an industrial accident. And let’s discuss sportsmanship: Cobb was well-known for sharpening his spikes and sliding into bases with his feet up as to impale opposing players. There have been stories that Cobb murdered a man (perhaps his own father). While we cannot convincingly say that Cobb was a murderer, we can say with authority that he was a racist; and a generally reprehensible human being.

Let’s talk about baseball’s first commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis. Yes, Landis was instrumental in restoring the sport’s integrity after the Black Sox gambling scandal, but Landis (a Northwestern University alumnus like myself, alas [he attended NU Law School]), inducted to the Hall in 1944 was one of the leaders in the ban on African-American players in the major leagues. In fact, it wasn’t until Landis’ death that Branch Rickey signed Jackie Robinson and promoted him to the majors, breaking the color barrier. But Landis is in the Hall of Fame; his part in the discrimination of an entire race of Americans is all but unmentioned.

So, if the criteria for induction into the Hall of Fame are flawed, let’s compare the current guys to Cobb and Landis. Let’s start with Peter Edward Rose. I may be the only person in America that believes that Pete Rose should be in the Hall of Fame and not reinstated to baseball. How does that work, you ask? Since there has been no evidence that Rose bet on baseball while he was amassing the all-time record of 4,251 hits, he cannot be kept out of the Hall of Fame. However, since he knew the rules, he should never be allowed a position in baseball. But even Charlie hustle never tried to injure an opponent (even Ray Fosse, who Rose barreled into in the 1970 All Star Game). Rose is also by many accounts a sleazy person (although he was very nice to me as an usher at Wrigley field just before he broke Cobb’s hit record), but how many people in the Hall are saints?

As to the steroid bunch, any activities before 2002 are grandfathered into the record books, since steroids, HGH and other performance enhancing drugs weren’t illegal in baseball until that time (even if they were illegal by U.S. law). There was no testing at that time, so we can’t go back and test their blood, urine and other bodily fluids. By the same token, the testing that has been done since 2002 has been the weakest among the major sports, so we really cannot accurately tell who was dirty and who wasn’t. During all of this time, players knew that they could use these drugs to get better, Many of them did; many of them didn’t. But how many? Ten percent? Twenty? Fifty? Seventy? If it is as Jose Canseco and so many others have portrayed, that the majority of the players in the late 1990s and early 2000s were using drugs, then can’t the argument be made that the playing field was level; everyone was using it. And, as I stated earlier, there’s no way of knowing who is innocent and who’s guilty other than their word, and people can and will say anything in their own best interests.

However, I will say one thing that will upset the players under the steroid cloud; if they are allowed into the Hall of Fame, if there is ever proof that they used performance enhancing drugs, their plaques in Cooperstown should be amended to reflect that fact. For example, Rose’s plaque should say that Rose was banished from the sport for betting on baseball after his playing career. That way, future attendees to the Hall of Fame can capture the players’ entire relationship with baseball. If Rafael Palmeiro is allowed in the Hall of Fame; his plaque should read that he tested positive for steroids in 2006. Any future allegations against McGwire, Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa that can be proven will be added to their plaques. It’s only fair.

Once an oasis of progressive music, Chicago’s WXRT (93.1 FM) is now a bastion of mediocrity. Even worse, it’s just plain BORING! Let us count the ways…

Resigned to the Musical Ghetto

Even though I have been listening to the station since the 1970s, when there were two featured artists per day and they were eclectic pairings like the Grateful Dead and Ludwig van Beethoven; I am not going to just lazily say that the station was great back in the day, and has just gotten lame recently. In my opinion, the station has never completely lived up to its potential. Black rock music has always been completely ignored, unless one counts the occasional Jimi Hendrix or Thin Lizzy song. The station actually became interesting for a couple of weeks, but it was only as a result of the death of Ray Charles that we actually heard a fair dose of the man’s music on the station. If it weren’t for Tom Marker’s consistently fine Blues Breakers program, black music has long been ignored on the station. I can understand not wanting to compete against the soul stations, but as the trend moved more towards Rap and Hip-Hop, WXRT could have been progressive and played Sly and the Family Stone, or really went far out and played the more hard rock songs of Funkadelic. And it was well known that the station had a ban on all Prince songs for several years. Why? His big days were over; he wasn’t getting huge play on the soul stations, that had moved on to Rap in a big way. Why was he not played?

But it was better in the old days. How would most people have heard of Elvis Costello, or The Clash, or The Police in their early days without ‘XRT? Not as hip as their coastal counterparts, the station was not on the cutting edge of rock music, but it was only about one-half beat behind. It was truly an alternative to top pop music stations.

What Happened?

Maybe it was around the time that the station was sold to Westinghouse in 1995, or perhaps the station was changed to make it more palatable for sale to a big corporation, but the station sounded more and more like their contemporaries in the early 1990s. The station has always catered to one end of their market, whether it existed or not. In the 1990s, the station played two artists to death: the Pretenders and Tom Petty. I cringed whenever there was a new record coming out from either act, because it meant a nearly non-stop barrage of that artist. I personally was a bid fan of the Pretenders under ‘XRT nearly killed them for me. Fortunately, their love affair with Petty has abated a bit, so I can actually listen to him again.

As time progressed, as I have said, Petty fell out of favor somewhat, but there was another to take his place. As surely as death and taxes, an ‘XRT listener can be certain that he or she is never more than 15 minutes away from a Talking Heads song. I loved this band; I have all of their albums and re-bought them on CD. They are all but unlistenable to me now, except for the album Fear of Music, which has more of an African, polyrhymic vibe, which may be why ‘XRT stays away (see above).

I don’t know what it is about the Talking Heads, a band that broke up nearly 20 years ago, but they are the station’s bulwark, guaranteed to be in heavy rotation until the world ends. Not to mention the fact that it seems that at least once per every six weeks, David Byrne and the Talking Heads are the station’s Friday Feature. I have asked morning DJ Lin Brehmer what is the difference between those days and every other day on the station. The answer: not much.

Another lucky break for the station was this year’s reunion of The Police. The station could pull out their greatest hits and suddenly, they would become current again. Never mind that this was just a cheap play for Gen X and Y dollars by the band; this meant nothing to the suits at CBS, who pushed ‘XRT to fill the airwaves with songs that come out when I was in college in the late 1970s.

Time Warp

I tried to come up with the reason why the station was so lame. They played many of the artists that I loved. Compared with “mainstream” stations, ‘XRT was proud to say that they had an artist list of hundreds of artists instead of the 100-200 of a normal station. An e-mail from Mr. Brehmer let me know that many artists didn’t care for WXRT since they played songs only twice per day. So, what was the story?

First, there was the definition of “rock.” Norah Jones is rock and roll like Barry Manilow is. There was this creeping in of artists who not only didn’t play rock, but whose jazzy, sleep inducing music would bring any energy on the station to an abrupt halt. There are more singer-songwriters than in the hey-day of James Taylor, Cat Stevens (before his conversion), and Jackson Browne. What is next? Lawrence Welk?

Finally, I came on it after listening day after day in the morning and on my ride home in the evening: while they have a longer list of artists, they number of songs they will play by that artist is quite limited. Take Elvis Costello for example. If you listen during the day (my primary time to listen), you will here “Alison,” “(What’s So Funny) ‘Bout Peace Love and Understanding” and maybe “Pump It Up.” Elvis has any number of great “albums” (CDs) that would be welcome on a truly progressive station, but they don’t get played.

Another station in the market boasts that they play “Deep Cuts,” songs on CDs that didn’t get played much on the radio, but were still good songs. This tactic has elicited a few surprises as I was channel surfing. But there are never any surprises on “XRT. Only occasionally will one hear something that isn’t played everyday twice per day in endless rotation.

That is except for one band that gets their entire catalog played. No, not the Talking Heads; they get only slightly more that the standard three hits so that they can be played every 15 minutes. No, it’s not Tom Petty or the Pretenders. No, it’s a band that has been broken up longer than these bands have been together combined. Of course, I’m talking about the Beatles. Terri Hemmert has always had the best woman’s voice on Chicago radio, and her adoration for the Fab Four is unmatched, but over time, I listen less and less to her Beatle fest every day. She has her “Breakfast with the Beatles” program on every Sunday morning; she should leave it to that and severely limit the number of Beatles’ songs on her daily show. But she isn’t the only offender. The entire Beatles catalog is open season any time; but try hearing anything but the same three records from anyone else and good luck!

Let’s Play the Boring New Music

As I alluded to earlier, WXRT was instrumental in breaking new acts on Chicago. Much of the Punk and New Wave scene of the 1970s and 1980s has to thank the station for its efforts. But I wonder if today’s new artists are dictated by Sony/CBS (the parent), and how much of the “conventional wisdom” is to let Q101 break the young artists; ‘XRT’s demographic is getting older, so I can hear the executive suits, “we have to push out the tired, mid-tempo artists. We can’t get the old people too excited! They may have heart attacks or short out their pacemakers!” So we get K T Tunstall, and Jack Johnson, and others in the John Meyer ilk. Snore!

Why is it that as people get older, they have to “mellow out?” I call this the Eric Clapton syndrome: rock out in our youth, but as we get old, we play on our reputations to put out musical crap (also known as the Rod Stewart, Great American Tedium syndrome). Thank God for people like Bob Mould and Neil Young and Graham Parker who can do ballads, but can still rock out from time to time. At the age of 48, I firmly believe that just because you get old doesn’t mean that you have to be old!

Meanwhile, old time “XRT stalwarts like Costello, Graham Parker, Marshall Crenshaw, and Joe Jackson among many others are still out there, making music as vital as anything they did in their hey day, but do their new offerings get played? One song from the fine Costello/Allen Taussaunt CD was played during the day, but the one “single” was one of the weakest on the CD. More people might have been interested in buying the CD if more songs were played (and between 7 PM and 5:30 AM doesn’t really count for maximum airplay). Mr. Parker is even on a local company (Bloodshot), and although they say he is getting played, I haven’t heard his latest CD “Don’t Tell Columbus” once. Other 2007 CDs by artists like Richard Thompson, Nick Lowe, Interpol, Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs, Black Francis, Neil Young, Nine Inch Nails, and The Hives languish unheard.

The Problem or The Solution

Complaints that I made to the station over time have gone unanswered. Only Mr. Brehmer through his e-mails has ever responded to me. I hear than Program Director Norm Weiner is a nice man, but I wonder if he is a bit like Charles Foster Kane; disconnected from the world in his musical Xanadu? But on advertisements, it is pushed that the DJs program the station. If only that were true. I have had the opportunity to go on three WXRT excursions to New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. I have been down there with Ms. Hemmert and Mr. Marker and I know for a fact that both of them have a great love for music of very diverse types. I met Mr. Brehmer at an R.E.M. concert several years ago along with the e-mail correspondence, and he said that the ‘XRT DJs have some of the most diverse music interests of anyone he knows. So, it’s a cop out to blame it on the DJs.

I thought that some youth would be served when the station brought on Jason Thomas, who sounds considerably younger than the other DJs. I mourned the loss of Johnny Mars to make room for him (who has fortunately returned on the weekends), but I thought that some youth would be a much needed shot in the arm. So far, however, Mr. Thomas’ contribution has been to play Aerosmith and Blue Oyster Cult during the evening drive. If I wanted that, I would just listen to “the Loop.”

In my correspondence with Mr. Brehmer, he suggests that we be happy with what we have, because other progressive stations have disappeared, and ‘XRT could be a country station at any time. And ‘XRT listeners have been lemming-like. A few months ago, when the station had a “radiothon,” allowing people who donated to charity to pick their favorite songs to be played (a very good thing that the station does), at one point, someone paid good money for a Natalie Merchant songs that can easily be heard for free ad nausium at any other time of the week.

So, why not just turn the station off? “Stop your bitchin’ and turn the dial,” I hear you saying. I do and have. I am the perennial channel surfer, hitting the presets on the car radio to find something, anything that is good. But “XRT is my number 1 preset, and I invariably give them more opportunity than all of the other stations combined to play something that I want to hear. And, I feel that with over 30 years of listening, I have a vested interest in having a vibrant ‘XRT. I don’t have the same amount of time or options to hear what’s new in music, and with iTunes and satellite radio, I may be missing music that I would really like. That was WXRT’s greatest strength: bringing artists that you might miss to the forefront. Some of us care about the station, and feel like the DJs are our old friends, and it saddens us to hear them reduced to barely one step better than the regular stations, just because they have to listen to “The Suits” and their conventional wisdom. Sometimes it might be better if they did turn WXRT into a country station; then we can listen to our iPods, and miss what we had with fondness instead of listening to the dried-up husk of what it has turned into.