One, Two, Three and You're Out

Restarting Sports in Virus-Deep Florida was the Worst of Miscalculations;
Sports leagues should have ignored the welcome mat offered by the Sunshine State

Jim Souhan
Minneapolis Star Tribune, July 5, 2020 You can subscribe to the online Minneapolis Star Tribune for only $3.79/week (99c/week for first four weeks).

[This column was announced in my morning [July 6] Facebook post as follows:

Searching for threads of stand-up funny under a shroud of deadly serious can be as dangerous as it is difficult. But when dissenting from my FCC colleagues' opinions satire was often the only effective response to the outrageous and absurd. (See opinions in my book, Catfish Solution, https://tinyurl.com/y4m9rqop )

One skilled sports reporter found himself in a comparable position regarding COVID-19 and sports in Florida.]

A bunch of sports leagues have decided to stage their return this summer in Florida. Apparently Hades was booked for a coronavirus party. [Photo credit: Wikimedia Creative Commons]

Maybe the better way to think of it is that Florida is a corona­virus party. And the party promises to never stop.

The United States might have handled the pandemic worse than any other developed country, and Florida might have handled it worse than any other state. Sending thousands of athletes and staffers to Florida right now is like asking them to jump from the frying pan into the sun.

Restarting in Florida might be the worst idea in sports since the White Sox wore shorts. FC Dallas, in Orlando for the MLS tournament, had its Thursday game vs. Vancouver postponed because of eight positive tests. One NWSL team, the Orlando Pride, withdrew from that league’s comeback tournament after a handful of young players went to a Florida bar and later tested positive.

This is how badly these sports have miscalculated: They are getting outsmarted by Gary Bettman and Rob Manfred, the Ren & Stimpy of sports commissioners.

Bettman, who runs the NHL, took a look at the United States’ handling of the pandemic and crossed it off his list. He is expected to move the rest of his season to Toronto and Edmonton, just to be based in a country that understands that science is real whether you believe in it or not.

Manfred — a memorable figure from this summer’s disingenuous baseball negotiations — months ago considered restarting in Arizona, Texas and Florida. Then MLB must have hired someone with internet access, because he scrapped that plan.

Arizona, Florida and Texas are the Moe, Larry and Curly of the pandemic. Only recently has one of those states’ leaders begun acting like an adult. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, after watching the virus sweep through his state and overwhelm even the massive medical centers in Houston, finally mandated the wearing of masks statewide.

As a former Texas resident, I recognize this strategy. It’s known as closing the barn door after a lot of people died.

The NBA plans to return to action in Orlando. This decision was made for obvious and cynical reasons. ESPN, which has a close financial relationship with the league, is owned by Disney. Orlando is an NBA city and can offer large, entertaining bubbles in which athletes can live.

This all would make great sense if Orlando wasn’t located in Florida, and if this didn’t seem like a pure money play by Disney and ESPN, rather than a decision made in the best interests of players’ health.

Four NBA teams were recently forced to close their home workout facilities because of the virus. Are we supposed to believe that the virus will respect the borders of teams’ bubbles in Orlando, home to international tourism and many residents who think of the virus as some worldwide hoax designed to make mask manufacturers rich?

The first American pro sports league to reopen was the National Women’s Soccer League. A few younger players from the Orlando Pride went drinking in a Florida bar. Subsequently, six players and four staff members tested positive for the virus, and the team withdrew from the league’s comeback tournament, which is being played in Utah.

The WNBA is set to return at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla. The Miami Marlins and Tampa Bay Rays have started their summer training camps. The Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers have resumed workouts. Minnesota United and most MLS teams are practicing in Orlando, with the Loons scheduled to return to play next Sunday.

What makes anyone think any of this will work?

The most hopeful answer available is that athletes, disciplined by nature, will understand just how dangerous Florida is, and take all precautions.

For months, we’ve been wondering how basketball or soccer players can expect to sweat and breathe on each other and avoid the virus, but at least in practices and in games they are interacting with other athletes who have been tested and who have reason to be vigilant about their health.

Where their discipline will be tested is in the Florida wilds. The bars and beaches, the theme parks, the restaurants in which some of the patrons literally wouldn’t wear a mask to save your life.

Good luck with that, athletes. All you have to do is wear a mask, stay off Space Mountain, avoid the bars and shun the beaches. In other words, you might as well be in Edmonton.

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[Footnote. I believe this promotion of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and praise of its sports reporter, Jim Souhan, is within the category of "Fair Use." (It is a "noncommercial" use of no financial benefit whatsoever to me; it relates to news and public policy regarding a global pandemic, the free dissemination of which to the public is of the highest public interest; its reproduction in this blog will enhance, however minutely (rather than diminish) the financial value of this material for the Star Tribune and author. Nonetheless, if either the Star Tribune or the author requests I remove this blog post I will be happy to do so.
Email: mailbox@nicholasjohnson.org]

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Donald Trump's Barrel of Squirrels

How Does The Donald Do It?

Why do you watch sports on television? It's the only thing that happens on television. It actually occurs; that's why you can't stop watching it. Trump occurs. That's why we can't take our eyes off him.

-- Ron Suskind, on Chris Lydon's "Radio Open Source," September 8, 2016

In 1939, Robert Hutchins, boy wonder president of the University of Chicago, abolished its football program. I once asked another president of a major American university if he believed a semi-pro athletic program was a good fit inside "the academy," and how it could be justified. He replied, "I've always just considered it an anomaly."

Is that how we should think about a Donald Trump inside the American political system? As an anomaly?

Of course, part of the answer lies with his squirrels. But it's so much more.

For starters, there are solid, conventional explanations for what we have been doing to our politics ever since the Democratic Party joined the Republicans in ignoring the plight of the poor, working poor, beating back the unions that once enabled the working class to create a middle class, and then relying on the 1% to pay the party's bills.

Both parties failed to listen, and thus did not hear, the mounting public despair, disgust, and distrust that the parties created, and had by this year risen well above flood stage to rage. The Democratic Party's leadership refused to budge, even as primary and poll results revealed the state of the union was a demand for change, for representation, and a rejection of the establishment.

The Democrats offered a disaffected public their party's most quintessential establishment candidate, Hillary Clinton, with her 1950's-style campaign, and the second highest negatives of any presidential candidate ever. They had to have seen her struggle trying to best two of the nation's most unlikely presidential candidates -- Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders.

Bernie Sanders showed the Democrats what they had to do to win, how to generate not just numbers of voters but enthusiastic voters, how to attract new members from independents and first-time voters, and how to crowd-fund a presidential campaign with $27 contributions rather than billionaires. Not only did they not support him, or learn from him, or even thank him, they affirmatively fought him at every turn.

Then, of course, there's Hillary's familiar 30 years of baggage.

But there is much more to Trump's success and style than can be understood with conventional analyses of the Democratic Party's failures. [Photo credit: Wikipedia]

Who is this guy? What is he doing? Why is he doing it? How come so many Americans are supporting him? Are there any explanations?

In fact, there are an increasing number of theories as to how Donald Trump seems to have single-handedly bent what was once the American democratic process to his own ends.

One of my earlier theories emerged during conservative Hugh Hewitt's interview with Trump:

Hugh Hewitt (HH): You said the President was the founder of ISIS. I know what you meant. You meant that he created the vacuum, he lost the peace.

Donald Trump (DT): No, I meant he's the founder of ISIS.

. . .

HH: I think I would say . . . they created the vacuum into which ISIS came, but they didn't create ISIS. That's what I would say. . . . I'd just use different language to communicate it.

DT: But they wouldn't talk about your language, and they do talk about my language, right?

HH: Well, good point.

See, e.g., "Trump Might Not Be Blundering in Race," September 9, 2016; and "Understanding Trump," OpEdNews, August 29, 2016.

In other words, Trump's serious, presidential campaign strategy -- or perhaps just his personal, narcissistic goal -- may simply be to ensure he remains a visible ingredient in the media's ever-bubbling pot. There are very few ways for even America's most highly paid, skilled publicists to accomplish that. Trump has found, and seems to be comfortable with one of them: an outpouring of shocking assertions in colorful language, even if it often requires that he roam well outside the ample tent of truth.

Recently, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind provided a thoughtful expansion on my mere modest hunch, in an interview with one of America's brightest and most thoughtful talk show hosts: Chris Lydon, on WBUR's "Open Source." “Election 2016: Unreality T.V.,” September 8, 2016.

As Suskind explained,

"He [Trump] understands that the reality-based community is now being replaced by reality show values. And he knows how those work.

Here are some of the principles. Try to make sure it happens on the screen. Try to evolve, or devolve; just keep moving. Make sure their eyes are always on you. Make sure, even if what you say is nonsensical, and you flip back later and say 'I lied,' or 'I was wrong,' that they can't take their eyes off of you. . . .

Why do you watch sports on television? It's the only thing that happens on television. It actually occurs; that's why you can't stop watching it. Trump occurs. That's why we can't take our eyes off him.

And he understands that that's power. He flip flops four times in a day. Did he say it? Did he not say it? Is he taking it back? There's four different news stories between the morning and the night.

Hillary Clinton, what did she do that day? Was she even working?

He's got another day when you're only thinking about what Trump thinks, feels, or is going to say next. And because he occurs, actually happens in front of your eyes, you can't stop watching."

And a part of what you're watching are his almost constantly changing facial expressions -- a practiced skill of those who spend much time before a camera.

It's also possible, of course, that Trump was introduced at Wharton, and has long been, a student of Niccolò Machiavelli's 16th Century guidebook for tyrants, The Prince (1513) (Wikipedia: "Machiavelli described immoral behavior, such as dishonesty and killing innocents, as being normal and effective in politics."), or other literature by and about more recent dictators.

Suskind's point could be made, or expanded, to include the concept of "narrative," or "story;" or perhaps the distinction between appeals to emotion and appeals to intellect, which President Reagan so well understood. But Trump doesn't just "tell stories" -- Trump is the story, an ongoing story, like a soap opera, or episodic television series.

We love stories -- from Greek and Norse mythology, to Bible stories, to modern day comic book, film and television heroes. Whether consciously or unconsciously, Donald Trump may be playing, and Americans may be seeing him as, the World War II patriotic super-soldier and national savior, Captain America.

The childhood lessons from Aesop's Fables to The Little Engine That Could stick with us, and may be played out by us even as unaware adults. (The National Education Association once named the book one of its "Teachers' Top 100 Books for Children.")

Yes, give Americans a choice between a feature film or TV show of their liking and a serious and significant lecture (or political speech) and most will prefer the movie or TV show. Even on the rare occasions when serious subjects make it into the newspapers or onto our TV screens, many journalists (and politicians) will lead with the personal details of a single individual's experiences, their story.

Hillary's political speeches, and serious policy proposals, are now trying to compete with Trump's entertainment, and story.

It's not easy to get the kind of crowd for a political speech that is attracted to a rock concert, or whomever happens to be the most popular stand-up comic of the year. Frank Mankiewicz, campaign director for Senator George McGovern's 1972 presidential campaign, frustrated with the lack of media coverage, once made the point by saying he wanted to hire a campaign arsonist. The arsonist's job would be to set a fire in the early afternoon, wait for the TV trucks to arrive, cue McGovern to begin his speech, and hope that at least 30 seconds of it might make the evening news programs along with pictures of the fire.

As Suskind points out, Trump is doing the equivalent of setting four fires a day without ever striking a match.

Mark Hannah headlines that Trump is, in fact, a novelist, and that the presidential election is less about political choices than choices between fantasy and reality. He says of Trump's resistance to "inconvenient facts":

"We saw this resistance . . . when Trump denied that his campaign manager manhandled a reporter when video footage indicated otherwise. . . . [W]hen he claimed that the 'Obama administration was actively supporting Al Qaeda in Iraq,' that Ted Cruz's father 'was with Lee Harvey Oswald' before President Kennedy was assassinated and that 'crime is rising' in America. It's gotten to the point where those checking the facts are simply throwing their hands up in exasperation . . .. The contest between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton isn't so much a contest of conservatism versus liberalism, isolationism versus internationalism, outsider versus insider, or incivility versus tact. it's a contest of the fantasy of one man versus the reality of the rest of us."

Mark Hannah, "Donald Trump, Our Great American Novelist," TIME, June 30, 2016.

Of course, while Trump's offensive and degrading remarks about women, African Americans, Latinos, Muslims, Gold Star mothers, prisoners of war, and people with disabilities, among others, can make news, they can also make enemies. If a candidate is serious about getting elected, how can that be handled? Charles Krauthammer has a theory that fits with Suskind's. As Krauthammer notes about the extraordinarily competent Kellyanne Conway:

"[Trump campaign manager] Kellyanne Conway has worked . . . on the theory that if [Trump] can just cross the threshold of acceptability, he wins. . . . Can you really repackage the boasting, bullying, bombastic, insulting, insensitive Trump into a mellow and caring version? . . . Turns out, yes. How? Deflect and deny -- and pretend it never happened. Where are they now -- the birtherism, the deportation force, the scorn for teleprompters, the mocking of candidates who take outside money? Down the memory hole. . . . In this surreal election season, there is no past. . . . [Trump] merely creates new Trumps."

Charles Krauthammer, "Clinton Sharpens, Trump Softens. He's Rising, She's Falling," The Washington Post, September 15, 2016.

Garrison Keillor, in what amounts to an open letter to Donald Trump, has a different take on what he's about. Keillor says to Trump: "The New York Times treats you like the village idiot. This is painful for a Queens boy trying to win respect . . .. Running for president is your last bid for the respect of Manhattan. . . . [Y]ou wish you could level with [your fans] for once and say one true thing: I love you to death and when this is over I will have nothing that I want." Garrison Keillor, "When This is Over, You Will Have Nothing That You Want," The Washington Post, August 9, 2016.

Trump probably doesn't see the possibility of a loss from his efforts. As he tells his African-American audiences, "What have you got to lose?" As he has bragged, “I could be the first presidential candidate to run and make money on it.” After all, 20 percent of his campaign expenditures are going to his own companies.

Donald Trump's name, his brand, which others pay handsomely to use, is perhaps his largest asset. This suggests another theory. What has he got to lose from a presidential race? Either he wins the presidency and puts his name on the White House, or he wins the lottery as he watches the value of his brand increase by millions if not billions of dollars.

Meanwhile, whenever he needs to change the subject, there's always that barrel of squirrels. [Photo credit: Edwin Kats/Rex Features, Daily Mail.]

Oh, look, there's one now.

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Cooperation vs. Competition, Conflict, Combat and Catastrophe

November 6, 2009, 6:00 a.m.

Peace as Process
(brought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
There will be time enough in future blog entries to reflect upon the impoverished UIHC "leaders and staff," with their need to shake down patients for "voluntary" contributions to help make up for a $17 million shortfall, now heading off to an Orlando resort to think about it [B.A. Morelli, "Politician questions UI Orlando trip; Officials say Disney Institute the best around," Iowa City Press-Citizen, November 6, 2009, p. A1], but meanwhile, this morning . . .

President Lyndon Johnson used to have a teletype in the oval office, so he could know about the latest AP news bulletins just as soon as they were "on the wire." My modern day equivalent is an iPhone with the AP "app," and a laptop, or desktop, with instant access to the New York Times and local papers' online editions.

As it happened I used the latter yesterday afternoon and saw the story that the Times said was then only one minute old: the shooting at Ft. Hood near Killeen, not that far north of my old stomping ground in Austin. This morning it's reported as Robert D. McFadden, "Army Doctor Held in Fort Hood Rampage," New York Times, November 6, 2009, p. A1. During the night the story took up nearly one-half of each of the BBC's half-hour newscasts, and I suspect was reported by most of the world's major media.

(And speaking of Orlando, 20 minutes ago the Times reported another, possibly copycat, shooting in Orlando: Sewell Chan, "Gunman Shoots 6, Kills 1 in Orlando, Fla.," New York Times, November 6, 2009.)

But yesterday afternoon also brought me some better news that I'm going to reproduce for you in a moment.

The Times story notes that these seemingly unprovoked, mass, random killings are nothing new to America -- not that any of us needed to be informed of that fact: "The rampage recalled other mass shootings in the United States, including 13 killed at a center for immigrants in upstate New York last April, the deaths of 10 during a gunman’s rampage in Alabama in March and 32 people killed at Virginia Tech in 2007, the deadliest shooting in modern American history."

In fact, it's not the first in the Killeen area: "In 1991, Killeen was the scene of one of the worst mass killings in American history. A gunman drove his pickup truck through the window of a cafeteria, fatally shot 22 people with a handgun, then killed himself."

Look, I'm no psychiatrist -- though it appears yesterday's shooter was -- but it would seem to me that what's probably going on here is that he, what's the scientific psychiatric term? -- "snapped." So it's probably not a valid stretch to draw any "American character" conclusions from this single incident.

Still . . . we do tend to value, almost worship to the point of a mantra, the idea of "competition" -- competition on the playing field and competition in business and politics.

And while there are undoubted benefits from competition, there is also a downside, as when it leads to the conflict and verbal combat between the Democrats and Republicans in Washington. It seems pretty obvious that, at least for many of them, their single minded focus is, first, their own re-election, whatever it takes (including their taking of special interest money), and second, a "win" for their "team" (party) measured by which team has the majority, and therefore control, of the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives. And what "single minded focus" means is that if meaningful health care for the American people has to be sacrificed in the process, well, so be it. If it's necessary to handicap the domestic and international ability of the other party's president of the United States, well, that's just part of the "game."

(There is at least some speculation that an accumulation of the form of "verbal combat" we call "hate speech" may have played a role in triggering the action taken by the shooter yesterday.)

Even when the competition is in the relatively benign context of "sport," brawls occasionally break out -- regularly in hockey, occasionally in baseball -- and often among fans in the bars following the game.

Nor is it just verbal combat. We are at "war" in Afghanistan, with a vague and shifting mission (as was the case in Iraq), in a geographical area (it can't even be called "a country" in the way in which we think of that word) with challenges for which even the generals acknowledge there is no military solution. And yet we find it necessary to study for months, and debate, whether sending in even more troops will enable us to "win" (whatever that word might mean in this context). We're more comfortable with "combat," even when it is inappropriate and counterproductive, than the exploration of alternatives.

I'm not sure the case can be made that an exultation of competition leads inevitably to conflict and then to combat and finally to the kind of catastrophe that occurred at Fort Hood yesterday. But I do think there is some relationship, and I find it troubling.

We share the grief of the families of the 12 dead and 30 injured soldiers, innocent random bystanders all. And let us not forget the family and friends of the accused killer, and the other Muslims in and out of the American military who are as innocent as those who were shot, and yet may have to deal with some negative fallout from the incident.

And yet in the midst of the darkness brought on by competition, conflict, combat and catastrophe, there are those who light candles of hope as well as mourning.

There is another way.

You may be familiar with the training exercise in negotiation involving the "ugli [sic] orange." It's an effort to dramatize the difference between one's "position" and "interest" on the road to win-win solutions to conflict. There are many incarnations of the exercise. Here is one.

I don't think I can ever bring myself to believe, with Anne Frank, that "people are really good at heart." Many certainly are, but far from all, in my experience.

But what really helped me through the day yesterday was one example of the payback from "cooperation" as an alternative to competition, conflict, combat and catastrophe. It comes from, of all places, American business -- often seen as the most ruthlessly competitive institution in our society. Indeed, there are business leaders who would probably be tongue-tied if they could not draw upon sports analogies in heralding the virtues of competition.

It is an email received by a friend of mine from a Scott Westerman, a Comcast Area Vice President otherwise unknown to me, who is about to leave the position he currently occupies in order to apply for another. Here, with his permission, is the text of that email:

I got a call from a co-worker the other day. “Full disclosure,” he said. “I wanted you to know that we’re both competing for the same promotion.”

We’re friends. He said he didn’t want me to hear about it from someone else. I thought that was a classy thing to do.

Then I got a crazy idea.

“You know, both of us have strengths that could help the other during the interview process. Why don’t we prep each other so we can both can do our best?”

That sounds nuts on the surface. Why would you want to help a competitor win the job you desire? And why would anyone else who is competing with you even consider sharing his secrets?

My friend didn’t miss a beat. “That’s a terrific idea. Lets do it!”

We spent the next hour sharing nuggets from our areas of expertise, talking about how we would approach the job, sometimes debating the validity of an idea, but all the time trying to better understand the value that each of us brought to the table.

What followed was an email chain. I sent him the spreadsheets that helped me track progress, and explained sales strategies and my favorite management techniques. He sent me a blizzard of details on a section of the business where his expertise is nationally recognized.

We agreed that our joint goal was to help the company hire the best possible person for the gig and realized that, no matter how the chips fell, we would each enjoy working for the other.

I told my team members about the encounter. Some may have thought that their boss was crazy, but there was an interesting gleam in the eyes of others.

That gleam made sense to me two weeks later, when I learned that three of them were applying to succeed me in the role I was about to relinquish.

Naturally, I helped each of them prep for their first interview encounter. I know them well and shot tough questions their way, gave them feedback on their answers and tried to share the lessons I had learned in the role. It was enthralling to watch them work things through and gratifying to see that some of the ideas I had tried to teach them over our time together had taken root.

But the real surprise came later. I saw two of them heading out together at the lunch hour this week. When I asked what they were doing they said, “We’re sharing our knowledge with one another so that we can both be our best during the interview process.”

It turned out that all three of them had spontaneously agreed to help one another prepare.

Clearly, this approach only works if you’ve built a team who trust one another and are genuinely able to put the best interests of the group first. They have worked hard over time to build a unique bond. In our staff meetings, everyone pitches in to understand and assist with an individual’s challenge, even if its technically outside of their core competency. Sometimes, the best technical solutions came from our call center guy. And our marketing lead offered to off load some of the finance person’s work so that we could hit a forecast and customer communication deadline on time.

I can’t yet tell you who will get the two jobs that my buddy and I, and my three extraordinary team members are competing for. But my sense is that the likelihood of the right person being selected has gone up substantially.

Because we’re all in it together.

He got me to thinking -- about Senators John Kerry, D-Mass., Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.,trying to fashion bi-partisan meaningful support for a climate change bill; that cluster of law students I saw who were studying together rather than competing,"Paper Chase" style; the football player I saw reach down and give an opponent a hand getting up; and those corporate executives helping each other face-to-face instead of placing knives in the backs of their "competitors."

It brings to mind Robert Kennedy's line, "Some men see things as they are and say, 'Why'? I dream of things that never were and say, 'Why not'?"

Am I making too much of a single email? Maybe. But I don't think so. Because cooperation, working together for the benefit of all, is something that's possible every day in thousands of little as well as big ways. Whether it's the mission of our foreign and military policies, Comcast, health care reform, military units at Fort Hood and Afghanistan, politicians in Washington, or law students in Iowa City, we are, as Scott Westerman says, "all in it together." And the more often we behave as if we believed it the better off we all will be.
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* Why do I put this blog ID at the top of the entry, when you know full well what blog you're reading? Because there are a number of Internet sites that, for whatever reason, simply take the blog entries of others and reproduce them as their own without crediting the source. I don't mind the flattering attention, but would appreciate acknowledgment as the source, even if I have to embed it myself. -- Nicholas Johnson
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