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Sports – RI Future http://www.rifuture.org Progressive News, Opinion, and Analysis Sat, 29 Oct 2016 16:03:26 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.25 South Providence little league team struggles to afford World Series trip http://www.rifuture.org/south-pvd-little-league-struggles-afford-world-series/ http://www.rifuture.org/south-pvd-little-league-struggles-afford-world-series/#comments Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:30:56 +0000 http://www.rifuture.org/?p=66506 Continue reading "South Providence little league team struggles to afford World Series trip"

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cal ripken teamAfter winning both the state and New England tournaments, the Providence Washington Park Cal Ripken little league team has an invitation to be one of 10 teams from across the nation to compete in the World Series in August. But first the predominantly Hispanic group of 12-year-olds from South Providence has to raise $12,000 to be able to compete for the national championship.

“We’re limited in what we can do financially,” said Jennifer Asencio, whose son Dorsy, a pitcher, was the MVP of the New England tournament. She said the average parent earns between $20,000 and $30,000 annually – not enough to afford the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. “The kids have been canvassing the neighborhood. All the parents are asking their employers. We’ve asked the PawSox and the Red Sox.”

The team has also set up a GoFundMe page – and could really use your support.

Perhaps worse than the financial hardship of paying for the trip, Ascencio says the team from South Providence isn’t getting the same amount of attention that previous local little league teams received from local media.

“They just aren’t getting the same attention that Cumberland or Cranston West did,” Asencio said. “I’ve reached out to all the local news stations. The only obvious difference to me is these are Hispanic, low income kids.”

She added, “All the parents are saying the same thing. There’s been no response from the local news or local politicians.”

This is the seventh season for the Washington Park Cal Ripken little league and the 12-year-old team represents the inaugural class. “This group started tee ball together seven years ago and now they are going to the World Series together,” Asencio said. “It’s really a great success story.”

To advance to the World Series, they had to beat teams from all over Rhode Island and New England. The team, she said, is a tight-knit group that has already developed a sense of community organizing.

“When there isn’t practice or a game, the kids all practice together,” Asencio said. “They help the younger kids. They are just the best group of kids.”

So far, the team has raised $2,000. Assuming they can raise another $10,000, they will compete in the Cal Ripken World Series from August 4 through August 14 in Ocala Florida.

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PawSox are still looking for money and one fan is not happy http://www.rifuture.org/pawsox-one-fan-not-happy/ http://www.rifuture.org/pawsox-one-fan-not-happy/#comments Sun, 26 Jun 2016 05:12:44 +0000 http://www.rifuture.org/?p=64815 Continue reading "PawSox are still looking for money and one fan is not happy"

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Lucchino
Lucchino

He’s a lifelong unionized worker, has gone to PawSox games for the last four decades, and knows cities intimately as a former telephone worker. Dan Murphy also went to every Listening Tour stop last summer when owner Larry Lucchino was trying to get a new stadium built by the taxpayers in Providence as one of the leaders of the grassroots resistance, vociferous in his rejection of the proposed deal then and now still opposed to public funding for renovations of private buildings, be it McCoy Stadium or the Superman building in downtown Providence.

Recently the pre-bid press conference was held at McCoy Stadium for “proposals from qualified firms to prepare a master plan study (the “Study”) of the McCoy Stadium facility and surrounding area located in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. The intent of the Study is to develop a master plan for significant repairs, upgrades, system replacements and/or improvements to McCoy Stadium and the surrounding area. The State of Rhode Island has regularly financed capital improvements to McCoy Stadium.” This comes more than a year after the late Jim Skeffington and Lucchino told the public a study had already been done and found that renovations for McCoy were too costly.

Dan Murphy
Murphy

At a moment when bankruptcy is being floated in regards to the capital city, school buildings are in abject shambles, the birthing unit of a Pawtucket hospital is due to be closed, and unemployment and under-employment still high, Pawtucket Mayor Donald Grebien and state leaders are seriously considering this in two different instances. Murphy has read through the bid solicitation document for the PawSox and remains unimpressed.

“You can’t buy it with capitalism and pay for it with socialism, it doesn’t work that way,” he said. “If the state owns a piece of it and it looks like a good deal, then it’s worth considering. Other than that, no. To make rich people richer? No way! Neither one of those facilities is life-essential, like a hospital or a police-fire station combination or something to that effect. This is just a stadium and its just a building and they’re not going to make anyone any richer except for the people who own them.”

Click the Player Below to Listen to More of This Interview!

Is there any indication that Lucchino has any interest in keeping the team in Pawtucket for at least the next 25 years? “Oh God no. They’re shopping around, they’re holding their cards close to the vest. I think this whole song and dance they’re doing now with they’re supposedly rebuilding the trust and all that crap? They’re not looking to do that. They’re looking at the fans that go to a certain amount of games every year, and you can count on them like clockwork, they’re not bothering with them, just like they didn’t bother with us last year. They assume we’ll keep coming and if we don’t we’ll be replaced with the new hipster-type fans.”

Murphy’s years of going to the PawSox games have helped him learn about the neighborhood surrounding McCoy intimately. “I think their only investment in the community surrounding McCoy Stadium would be to level it and to build it into something that they want. That’s about it. If you recall when we were putting up with those dog-and-pony shows last summer, [team president Charles] Steinberg never really had anything good to say about the neighborhood around McCoy, he saw that as a negative, almost like it was a ghetto or a slum or something. It’s a lot of three-decker houses that were very well-kept and that’s a very clean neighborhood. Walk around it sometime! It’s a very clean neighborhood. But that whole neighborhood is going to get the kiss of death if Lucchino and his boys get their way.”

What is Lucchino like in comparison to late owner Ben Mondor? “Ben Mondor brought almost like a warmth, a trust, a friendship, a guy that you would sit down with and have a beer, even though his social and financial stature is way different than your own. He was a good guy. That’s the way he was looked at and people supported what he wanted to do because he never wanted to bring that stadium above the people who went there. He wanted to keep the team in Pawtucket, he wanted to keep the games being played there, he wanted to stay in that stadium if at all possible. He was your typical Rhode Islander, even though I believe he was from Canada originally,” he says.

“Lucchino, his history has been just build a stadium and flip it or rebuild a stadium and flip it. He’s not a baseball man, he’s a businessman and the same thing with his whole crew with him, his yes-men.”

“I don’t think they are above moving [the team] right when [construction] is starting to happen. It’s strictly business.”

 

If you like my reporting, please consider contributing to my Patreon!
If you like my reporting, please consider contributing to my Patreon!
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Imam Farid Ansari on the death of Muhammad Ali http://www.rifuture.org/imam-farid-ansari-on-the-death-of-muhammad-ali/ http://www.rifuture.org/imam-farid-ansari-on-the-death-of-muhammad-ali/#respond Sun, 05 Jun 2016 10:22:34 +0000 http://www.rifuture.org/?p=64012 Continue reading "Imam Farid Ansari on the death of Muhammad Ali"

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The Champ is gone.

On June 3, 2016, Muhammad Ali, considered by many to be the greatest boxer to ever step into the ring, died in Arizona at age 74 following a long battle with Parkinson’s contracted from head trauma sustained in his career. Since his retirement in the early 1980’s, Ali had shied away from the public eye while living a quiet life of prayer. He would occasionally appear in the public spotlight, such as at the opening of the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games where he was the final person to carry the torch, but his privacy was highly-valued and respected by a press and public who knew he wished to be remembered for what he had been.

And what he had been was simply akin to a super-nova, that brightest stage in the life of stars that lights up the sky in a fashion that makes all others pale in comparison.

There had been black boxing stars before Ali, such as Joe Louis, and some that had also courted controversy, such as Jack Johnson. But neither of them nor any others ever dared before or since to reach for the modern day legendary status that Ali seemed to walk into with an ease and grace that infuriated the white supremacist civilization he lived and died in. If his onetime friend had been “our own black shining Prince,” to quote Ossie Davis, then Ali was the grandest Knight in the court, slaying dragons on the canvas and off with such a flourish that J.R.R. Tolkien would be unable to do his story justice.

Born Cassius Clay, he became a major sports figure before he met the radical black preacher who had been born Malcolm Little but changed his name to Malcolm X. Attracted to each other by their outright pride in being black, the minister brought the boxer into the fold of the Nation of Islam, a religious community that had existed as a kind of storefront sect, blending mainstream Islam with black nationalism, under the leadership of Elijah Muhammad.

Ali Malcolm X

The Nation of Islam ended up becoming a major force in the history of African American life almost by accident. Its basic theological coordinates were grounded in a territory that was extremely problematic on the face of it, including a set of stories about the origin of the African and the European races that would befuddle many and earned denunciations as heresy from the worldwide Muslim religious polity.

Yet this syncretic religion, almost despite itself, was able to step into a void and tell African men and women that they were people of inherent value and dignity, a people whose origins and lot in life signified not decrepitude, as white supremacy would have them believe, but a kind of prophetic beauty on the level of Christ. Through a series of ceremonies and rituals not found in mainstream Sunni or Shia Islam, it taught people who had been trained from birth to hate themselves that they not only could but should repudiate white supremacy as a culture and ideology with a militancy akin to Caesar’s crossing the Rubicon. Not since the best days of the NAACP and the Communist Party a generation earlier had there been such an insurgency challenging racism in our society.

Clay’s conversion to the Nation was a major publicity coup at the time, showing the world that the faith could attract major sport superstars. But it was also simultaneous with a series of developments that would ultimately lead to the murder of the man who brought him into the fold. Malcolm X had been the stage persona that elevated the group into the mainstream discourse almost totally because of his charisma and style. The American government knew that he posed a threat to them, epitomized by his call to lodge a complaint at the United Nations against the United States for human rights abuses of people of color that would try to impose South African-style sanctions on the superpower, a cause he gained support for from many post-colonial states in Africa and Latin America. This was simply unacceptable and so the federal government targeted him with their COINTEL-PRO efforts.

ali castro

They created a schism between Malcolm and Elijah Muhammad, based around the elder man’s sexual proclivities. Then they sowed confusion and discord by planting advantageous news stories and sending forged letters to the different parties so to further the divide and inflame the ranks to homicidal rage. Now named Muhammad Ali by his new faith, he defended the religion against the alleged heretic Malcolm but in later years deeply regretted his decisions. After the death of Elijah Muhammad, he and many of his coreligionists followed Elijah Muhammad’s son into mainstream Islam while Louis Farrakhan, for reasons that are outside of the scope of this discussion, chose to keep the Nation alive.

Imam Farid Ansari is one such African American whose religious path followed this same trajectory. He leads the Muslim American Da’wah Center of Rhode Island and kindly granted me an interview providing a set of insights about what it meant to live through such times.

Ansari

“He had a lot of influence and…on my own life when he converted as well as being a member of the Nation of Islam. In fact he became a minister,” said Ansari.

“Even today, when I speak to people, they oftentimes, as an African American convert to Islam, many people assume that we’re still identified as the Nation of Islam. I know that being characterized as ‘black Muslims’ back then…was to try to denigrate the growth of the Islamic religion in the African American community. But, having said that, I do believe, because of the racialization of the teachings of the Nation of Islam, and the fact that there was a strong identity with blackness, so to speak, that name black Muslims caught on and now, today, after the passing of Elijah Muhammad, that transition to the mainstream of Islam under the leadership of Imam W.D. Muhammad, who basically put aside a lot of the racialized teachings because it didn’t have any place in the actual religion of Islam. In fact Islam prohibits that kind of attitude towards one another in terms of superiority of white over black or black over white. And under the leadership of Imam W.D. Muhammad he enforced that and he brought the community away from that racialized version of Islam that was introduced by his father Elijah Muhammad. Essentially, the difference being the Nation of Islam’s teachings were really characterized by a lot of the racial differences… I wouldn’t say that was at the core of it but, because of the American experience, it did sort of affect the initial growth of Islam here in America under the leadership of Elijah Muhammad. But thank God that his son brought us into the community of al-Islam, the mainstream of Islam.”

“Part of the mythology and the teachings of the Nation of Islam was to emphasize that we were brought here to America as slaves. And part of that experience was really demonstrated in the current broadcast of Roots and previously, when Alex Haley first came out with Roots, it did show you the kind of brutal treatment that was imposed upon the Africans when they initially came here and a lot of the original names that were given, that Africans had, the culture, the language, the religion, was torn away from many of the slaves and that’s history, that in fact did happen. And the slaves were identified with their masters as property, so a lot of the names that were imposed upon the Africans were not in fact the names that were identifiable to a particular tribe, a particular people, and therefore that was emphasized in the Nation of Islam. So in order to sort of evolve from that experience Elijah Muhammad taught as part of his teachings that the names that we had were imposed upon us by the slave master. And until the transition to Islam, we would no longer be identified by our slave master names. And so that is why he said everyone would be X.”

“Muhammad Ali had a lot of foresight and he looked ahead.”

“He will probably remain an enigma in death as well as in life.”

Click the Player Below to Listen to More of This Interview!

Other columns written by the mainstream press are going to emphasize his multiple victories inside the ring and so to reiterate that which is being said seems rather useless. Yet few will talk about how our tax dollars funded the targeting of all of the members of the Nation of Islam by those we designated the arbiters of law and order.

But that is the essential topic to talk about for a simple reason, it cuts to the core of how bright this super-nova truly shined. To leave it out is to in fact discredit him entirely and make his glory seem cheap. We must emphasize how deeply he and his coreligionists terrified the government and its various functionaries. We must explain that it was both Democrats and Republicans, Kennedys and Nixons, who cowered in fear of this man for the power he so humbly wielded. We must give the COINTEL-PRO narrative a level of primacy for it reveals the true measure of the man.

This is a narrative that is so feared that books that have precise and exact bibliographical citations of the primary source documents, the actual FBI and CIA memos about the Nation of Islam, are relegated to the margins while reams of nonsense, such as the detestable Manning Marable biography of Malcolm that traffics in tabloid rumor and pornographic insinuations, are made to seem as the seminal histories of this episode in African American culture. That is how truly terrified white supremacy is still of the Nation of Islam even all these years after the deaths of its major leaders.

Islam is a religion that repudiates notions of individuals being ontologically differentiated from others, embracing a humanist universalism unlike the Catholic Church that says priests, bishops, and popes experience transformation of their being upon ordination. This is part of why it is so demonized by the Christian right and perverted by the monarchs of various states in the Middle East.

Yet I doubt many would call it heresy to say that Muhammad Ali will be remembered for all history by a simple honorific, the Greatest.

cassius-clay-portrait

If you like my reporting,please consider contributing to my Patreon!
If you like my reporting,please consider contributing to my Patreon!
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Lover come back: Will Pawsox, fans kiss and make up http://www.rifuture.org/lover-come-back-will-pawsox-fans-kiss-and-make-up/ http://www.rifuture.org/lover-come-back-will-pawsox-fans-kiss-and-make-up/#comments Thu, 14 Apr 2016 22:13:36 +0000 http://www.rifuture.org/?p=61468 Continue reading "Lover come back: Will Pawsox, fans kiss and make up"

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SarandonBullDurhamIn the iconic movie about minor league baseball, Bull Durham, the hotcha Susan Sarandon plays Annie Savoy, a diehard fan who worships at the “Church of Baseball,” the home park of a low minors team, the Durham Bulls. She is in essence a sophisticated baseball groupie.

Every year Annie welcomes the new roster of the Bulls. And through the course of the season gives the ballplayers her full-hearted devotion, affection, the finer points of the game and, in some cases, her body. Sarandon immortalized the nickname for her place in the pantheon, “Baseball Annie,” in a wonderful way. All Annie asked from the Bull players in return every year was respect and loving kindness. At the end of the year, it was all good-bye hugs and kisses, and no regrets to the boys of summer, with a new group due in for the same warm embrace in the spring.

At McCoy Stadium, it has never really been about the constantly changing players on the field, but the warmth, family atmosphere and affordable prices that allow folks to get more than their money’s worth. And if that is the future Jim Rice or Fred Lynn or Wade Boggs out there, it is a bonus that will be realized down the road with a boastful, “I saw him when he was at Pawtucket!”

BullDurham posterPawtucket Red Sox fans have become our own version of Baseball Annie, currently at a rift between the adoration of the PawSox in our hearts, and their ill-considered moment of straying from the emotional commitment of their loyal lovers. This was the much-vilified attempt by the new owners of the PawSox to abandon their age-old home of McCoy Stadium in the heart of The Bucket to more glamorous riverside digs in Providence. It left all the Little Rhody Baseball Annies stunned, hurt and more than a little pissed off.

Fortunately, that pie-in-the-sky attempt to drop Baseball Annie in favor of a more upscale relationship in the Capital City blew up in the team’s face. For a number of appallingly obvious reasons, the plan to relocate went down faster than Jeb Bush’s presidential hopes.

Time to make nice

Fortunately, the two new members of the front office management team, President Dr. Charles Steinberg and Sr. V.P./General Manager Dan Rea, seem to understand the Baseball Annie love affair the public has with their franchise. They inherited the mess from last year’s aborted move, which cost the club a big hit in attendance, and after a worthwhile chat with them, seem to fully understand the unspoken dynamic between team and fans.

Even more pleasingly, Vice Chairman Mike Tamburro, he of the perpetual smile and good humor, is still on hand from the legendary troika of he, late owner Ben Mondor, and top executive Lou Schwechheimer, who turned a moribund franchise into one that such New England lifestyle mags as Yankee magazine would recommend as a must-see Biggest Little attraction. And Dr. Steinberg so strongly relies upon Tamburro’s intimate knowledge of the needs and desires to succeed that he adamantly makes the point that he has moved himself into Tamburro’s office to make sure the acquired wisdom can rub off. Even to the point of pledging that he and Rea will be with Tamburro out in the parking lot greeting fans arriving for the game, even if they draw the slightly shocked and bemused reaction Tamburro is used to; most fans not realizing they have been given a personal thank you and warm welcome from the team’s top dog, who is more comfortable on the macadam than in a luxury box.

Steinberg and Rea both emphasize that the PawSox are here to stay in McCoy on a multi-year lease. This is almost a necessity if they want to woo their Annies back, and not seen to be looking over their devoted’s shoulder for yet another field of greener grass. They are making the critical financial commitment to the franchise with subtle improvements all around the 74-year old ballpark, the exception being the large banner atop a building outside the center field fence that shouts outs “Welcome to Pawtucket.” For residents of the city and essentially all Rhode Islanders, that is as good as sending two dozen red roses to their affronted lovers.

McCoy StadiumUnless my bullshit detector is badly damaged, I believe Steinberg, with Rea nodding in assent, when he says that the word for what they are trying to accomplish to bring their sweethearts back is simply, “Class. Doing things right and treating people well. It’s a two-way street.” And it is a road he, Rea and Tamburro are planning to take to win back the Baseball Annies.

You are lying – or extremely blessed – if you claim that you have never been in a serious relationship with a partner who hasn’t scared or hurt you by wandering for a bit, be it heavy flirting or thinking they can get a better deal dancing cheek-to-cheek with someone else. And chances are, if you knew you had the real thing happening, you sucked it up when apologies were sincerely offered with promises to never do it again. The PawSox have been too good, too faithful and too sincere for Baseball Annies like you and me to cut off our noses to spite our face.

Lover come back, all is forgiven. But don’t you ever, ever do that again. (Please.)

On The Ball And Off The Wall is an occasional sports column by Chip Young, a Rhode Island journalist who was a sportswriter and broadcaster for 25 years. Best known as Phillipe, of Phillipe and Jorge’s Cool, Cool World, Young was also an All-America soccer player in college, and he is in the Brown Athletic Hall of Fame. He has attended PawSox games since before the Mondor rehabilitation of the franchise, and once threw out the first pitch. He still has that ceremonial ball.

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Opening Day (and Red Sox?) blues http://www.rifuture.org/opening-day-and-red-sox-blues/ http://www.rifuture.org/opening-day-and-red-sox-blues/#respond Wed, 30 Mar 2016 17:24:00 +0000 http://www.rifuture.org/?p=60922 Continue reading "Opening Day (and Red Sox?) blues"

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“Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball.”
Jacques Barzun, noted historian.

WhammyjpgWhat a nice sentiment.

Unfortunately, not so true today as it was in the past. Instead of the elegant prose of an insightful Frenchman, in today’s sports world it would be more correctly expressed on a YouTube video with a tattooed Russian mobster snarling into a camera, “You wanna know what’s in Ahmereeca’s gut? Think NFL football, douchebag.”

Opening Day of the baseball season used to be marked by heralds blowing trumpets from on high, and cherubim and seraphim singing out across purple mountains’ majesty and amber waves of grain. Now you have to find the Olde Towne Team’s opener somewhere along the TV guide among the MMA fighting, and hockey and basketball playoffs. And check the nighttime dial, because day games where folks sneaked their transistor radios into schools and workplaces to catch the action have gone the way of kids actually learning or someone being paid an honest wage.

In those golden days of yesteryear, I could give you the starting lineups and batting order of every one on the eight National League teams when they started the season. Now there are 100-some Major League teams (or so it seems), in two countries. Try that memory trick on now, boyo.

RockyjpgMaybe it’s because the names were more apt to stick in your mind. Whammy Douglas. Smokey Burgess. Enos “Country” Slaughter. Dusty Rhodes. Vinegar Bend Mizell. Puddin’head Jones. Rocky Bridges. Today reading the lineup is like flipping through a Central American phone book, with a sub-directory for Tokyo. Hell, you need a Rosetta Stone primer to even pronounce a player’s name properly. It was much easier back in the days of know-nothing (and utterly xenophobic) sportscasters and baseball beat writers who decided they would call Roberto Clemente “Bob,” (which as a rightly proud Puerto Rican he despised), or Jesus Alou “Jay,” because if you think I’m calling that tinted young boy by our lord and savior’s name you got another think comin’, sonny.

And who the hell is playing baseball anymore? It isn’t Junior and Sparky from down the block, as any vacant lot this time of year will illustrate; that is far too déclassé for a “travel team” hopeful, and you’d have to make numerous “play dates” for kids to be allowed outside after school. You’re as likely to see kids hitting ground balls and fly balls to their friends, or playing catch in the driveway with their parent, as you are to witness a Good Humor truck roll by.

But enough maudlin reminiscing from some cranky old man…

How ‘bout those Red Sox?

Bill LeejpgThe Schizoid Sox will be hitting the field on April 4 on the road against Cleveland in The Tribe’s home opener. Geez, it would great to have Bob Uecker calling the game, but that would be confusing fantasy with reality.

Which seems to be the problem with the Red Sox over the past few years. The reality of finishing in the basement, with the fantasy of winning the 2013 World Series, then back to the reality of last place two straight years. That whole World Champs thing nobody seems to have figured out. Hell, call Stephen King, he’s a Bosox fan, he’d probably know.

The Boys of Summer – We will thank all gods in the future that we got to see the prime of David Ortiz and Dustin Pedroia, and that we can see a selfless player in the flesh in Brock Holt. Big Papi has to give the Fenway faithful one more good year, Pedey has to stay healthy, and Holt play seven positions well for the Red Sox to have a chance. And Ortiz’s farewell tour will be a distraction, and annoying and excessive, by Independence Day. Whatever happened to the ultimate and emotional farewell gift of having road fans give a sustained standing O to honor someone when he takes his last at-bat in their ballpark?

The Killer Bs – Mookie Betts, Jackie Bradley and Xander Bogaerts. Hopes for the future don’t get much better, but they have to produce. Now.

The Ace and the Hot Mess – David Price is the real deal. Clay Buchholz, as the Brits would say, flatters to deceive every year. The rest of the staff is PawSox North. Pray Craig Kimbrel will be the closer we paid for, provided someone can give him a lead to protect in the ninth.

Albatrosses – Hanley Ramirez and the Kung-Phu Phat Phuc, Pablo Sandoval, have about as much discipline as Miley Cyrus. Expect to see them both disinterested by June. Thanks for nothing.

But everyone knows that all that really counts is finishing ahead of the Evil Empire.

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St. Patrick’s Day, 1989: The biggest upset in college basketball history almost happened in Providence http://www.rifuture.org/pvd-st-patricks-day-almost-miracle/ http://www.rifuture.org/pvd-st-patricks-day-almost-miracle/#respond Wed, 16 Mar 2016 02:58:16 +0000 http://www.rifuture.org/?p=60319  There should be an interesting twist to this year’s St. Patrick’s Day celebrations in Providence.

The NCAA’s March Madness basketball extravaganza tips off in the Capital City on March 17 featuring eight very diverse teams. So there will be quite a few foreigners – as we should and will regard them ­- wandering the streets and undoubtedly getting a skinful on St. Paddy’s Day.  Smile, treat ‘em nice, and just enjoy the free sideshow by basketball fans exploring the eccentricities of Little Rhody. They are legion.

princetongeorgetownBut this isn’t the first time the NCAA tournament and St. Patrick’s Day came crashing together in Providence, Rhode Island. The last time was 1989, and it turned out to be the show of all shows.

Notre Dame played Vanderbilt in the nightcap of a doubleheader that day. When you have a team named the Fighting Irish playing in any kind of competition on St. Patrick’s Day, it exponentially ratchets up the amount of drinking that will be done by the sons and daughters of The Auld Sod, as well as those pretenders to the breed who annoyingly use Irish accents for a day.  (Just stop it! Stop it now!)

So the streets of Providence that day were teeming with Ireland-affiliated men and women and the tag-alongs. Kind of like “The Walking Shitfaced.”  I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many drunks being readily accepted in public as a whole, and I worked in midtown Manhattan on St. Patrick’s Day for a few years.  Nuf sed.

georgetownprincetonBut inside Civic Center, one of the most memorable games in NCAA history was being played, and we got a perhaps not-so-nice slice of American culture.  Princeton, the lowest (#16) seed in the region, was playing Georgetown, the #1 seed.  A #16 had never beaten a #1 in tournament history. It would take a miracle.

Georgetown then was the NWA of college hoops. Led by its gigantic and intimidating black coach, John Thompson (a PC grad and former b-ball star here), his team was full of in-your-face, talk-shit-take-none bruisers with a reputation for a defense that strictly took names and kicked ass, with an essentially all black cast.

Princeton had a coach named Pete Carril, as tiny as Thompson was imposing, a kind of basketball Yoda, although the way he danced around on the sidelines that day made you think more of a leprechaun.  His team of “smart,” virtually all white players essentially gave clinics on how the game of basketball should be played.

Problem was, Princeton took control of the game and made Georgetown look shambolic.  Running plays that would have made a drill sergeant proud, the Tigers took their time and just kept putting points on the board, as the crowd went crazy.

j_thompson_64As Princeton neared the biggest March Madness upset of all time, the Civic Center became louder than I have ever heard it.  Anyone who wasn’t a Georgetown fan, which meant most of the 10,000-plus on hand, was rooting for Princeton.  Part of it was because local PC fans detested Georgetown, but for the neutrals, not only was it an abiding love of the underdog, but it was those wonderful, cerebral white kids outsmarting their fierce and frightening black opponents. You didn’t need to be Cornel West or Donald Trump to figure that one out, however distasteful.  Ah, nice to know we have come so far.

At any rate, Georgetown’s only lead was taken on what was to be their final basket, to go ahead 50-49.  Princeton had two shots left with less than 10 seconds to win it, but the first was blocked out of bounds.  Princeton’s second shot was a) deflected by Mourning as Princeton’s Kit Mueller shot; or b) Mourning hit Mueller on the wrist as he shot, which would have given Mueller two potentially game-winning free throws.  Due to this non-call, Georgetown and the refs were booed off the court as loudly as the dreamers and hopers and perhaps darker thinkers in the crowd could muster.

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And maybe only an old snake charmer like St. Patrick could appreciate what happened in the not so far future, for any number of reasons that make you feel better:  John Thompson’s son went on to play college basketball…at Princeton…for Pete Carril.  Were everything so nice.

On The Ball And Off The Wall is an occasional sports column by Chip Young, a Rhode Island journalist who was a sportswriter and broadcaster for 25 years. Best known as Phillipe, of Phillipe and Jorge’s Cool, Cool World, Young was also an All-America soccer player in college, he is in the Brown Athletic Hall of Fame. Today he takes a look at one of the most near-famous basketball games ever played in Rhode Island.

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Baseball was built in cities like Pawtucket http://www.rifuture.org/baseball-was-built-in-cities-like-pawtucket/ http://www.rifuture.org/baseball-was-built-in-cities-like-pawtucket/#comments Wed, 17 Feb 2016 18:19:00 +0000 http://www.rifuture.org/?p=59139 Continue reading "Baseball was built in cities like Pawtucket"

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2015-06-05 McCoy Sing-a-Long 001While they never really left Pawtucket, to many of us it sure seemed like they did. Last year was a difficult year for the community. We learned about the Pawtucket Red Sox seeking another home only to abandon McCoy Stadium and Pawtucket. We were told there was no use discussing anything – the Pawtucket Red Sox were leaving.

While the neighborhoods surrounding McCoy are not glamorous, they are authentic places and these are the types of stadiums that helped baseball grow into being the sport it is today. Baseball grew to the chosen American pastime in the neighborhoods across America, just like Pawtucket. Our Textile Mill Leagues here in Blackstone Valley provided a work diversion, and entertainment with their baseball teams and that helped the professional teams grow. From these neighborhood fields Rhode Island sent players like Nap LaJoie to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. The roots of great baseball came from McCoy. These roots are what we need to build upon at McCoy.

The announcement of the move was not well received. The community was outraged, upset and created an organized resistance to the team moving. Rallies were held and the fans spoke up and out. Pawtucket’s Mayor, Don Grebien, took on the “up-hill battle” of fighting to keep the team in Pawtucket. The team’s effort to move has drastically changed. For the near future, the team is staying.

Last week, at a lunch at McCoy’s Clubhouse, Pawtucket Red Sox Chairman Larry Lucchino, Team President Dr. Charles Steinberg and General Manager Dan Rea addressed the community in a way that went beyond professional. It was heartfelt, meaningful and seemed to impact positively everyone in the room.   The late owner Ben Mondor and then President Mike Tamburro, now vice chairman, built the team with an amazing spirit that was not just corporate – it was heartfelt and community-driven. We have that spirit back at McCoy Stadium.

Our hearts were broken when the new owners fought so hard to leave Pawtucket. The community was not without blame. We could have done more to help create the “Destination Ballpark” they seek and deserve. It can be done in Pawtucket. We have time on our side and work to do. Economic Feasibility and Design Site Feasibility studies have to be completed.

The new team leadership, and the administrative support they have assembled, is working hard to regain the trust, friendship and support developed by the late Ben Mondor.

The community needs to support the work of our Pawtucket city officials and the new Pawtucket Red Sox ownership, if we are to keep the Pawtucket Red Sox at McCoy. Let’s begin to grow back the attendance, the business support and the high community morale the team gave us. Go Pawtucket Red Sox! Welcome to Pawtucket and Rhode Island Mr. Lucchino! This will be a great year.

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On the new PawSox management http://www.rifuture.org/on-the-new-pawsox-management/ http://www.rifuture.org/on-the-new-pawsox-management/#respond Tue, 10 Nov 2015 10:26:00 +0000 http://www.rifuture.org/?p=54942 Continue reading "On the new PawSox management"

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The recent announcement of the new management team of the Pawtucket Red Sox, with Dr. Charles Steinberg as president, Dan Rea III as senior vice president/general manager, and Jeff White as treasurer, struck all the activists who spent the summer stirring up a protest about the proposed construction of a new stadium in Providence as team owner Larry Lucchino doubling down on his proposal to help gentrify Providence. The three are veteran spokesmen for Lucchino and all made cameos this summer on the listening tour circuit, refusing to actually listen to the public and instead telling we poor stupid Rhode Islanders from on high how they planned to save us from ourselves.

I respect Howard, Fine, and Howard to insult their legacy, so instead I will call these three clones on Joe DeRita. Nyuck nyuck nyuck!
I respect Howard, Fine, and Howard far too much to insult their legacy, so instead I will call these three clones of Joe Besser. Nyuck nyuck nyuck!

In a recent article for the Providence Journal, Steinberg, whose training as a dentist just screams professional sports business acumen, said he wants to see ‘passion again’ in Pawtucket. Yet only four months ago he and the other two, along with Cyd ‘Vicious’ McKenna, were publicly insulting and antagonizing the very community they now claim they want to nurture.

Meanwhile, Jorge Elorza and Gina Raimondo continue to jump back and forth between appealing to the vast majority of sanely cynical citizens, who see this as a bail-out for a business model Lucchino’s type likes to impose on America’s past time, not to mention a Baltimore-styled gentrification move for Providence, and appeasing big-name Democratic Party donors who are getting cranky over not getting their way. The great political writer Paul Street has coined the phrase ‘Dismal Dollar Drenched Democrats’, one that is totally fitting herein.

If we look at the new leadership, we see a group of individuals who are more dedicated to the bottom line than the community. Steinberg is a long-time hanger-on of Lucchino’s coattails, having followed him to San Diego, Baltimore, and Boston, where they left less-than-desirable legacies. Rea is a year younger than me and does not remember when Bill Buckner let the ball roll through his legs during the World Series while White is obviously a number-crunching middleman with no interest in sports.

Leaving aside these surface observations, there is something much more important to note. Rea is a history baccalaureate graduate of Harvard, a finishing school of neoliberal public relations, and White comes from a long career of neoliberal financial restructuring deals. This school of thought, as fantastically described by Dr. Michael Hudson in a recent CounterPunch podcast with Eric Draitser, is a get-rich-quick ideology that stuffs the pockets of the few while defenestrating the taxpayers and treasuries. It is true that urbanized stadiums are quickly becoming the norm of baseball. Yet it is also true that baseball is functioning as a major lever of gentrification. During the summertime listening tour, McKenna reused as a talking point the idea that she as a Providence resident wished she could feel safe walking along the waterfront location on the old I-195 land corridor. The underlying implication, that those darned brown people make it unsafe, is a profoundly disparaging race- and class-based remark. Her invocation of the notion that a new baseball park would promote pro-active policing is certifiable lunacy when one recognizes the negative impact such policies have on people of color. Considering how Lucchino’s previous hosts in Baltimore were not exploding into demonstrations of celebratory glee for the police department last spring, only a member of the Chicago Cubs could miss how insidious this whole thing truly is.

Anyone who has followed this story in even a passing fashion this year can plainly see how truly desperate the ownership is now. Without any psychic abilities, it seems like they are ruing the day the late James Skeffington talked them into this because he thought he could pull a fast one and get his way due to the fact he had long-time connections going back to when his buddy Gov. J. Joseph Garrahy handed him a sweetheart real estate attorney deal. If one refers back to the original pitch at the Rhode Island Commerce Corporation he made with Lucchino, he looked genuinely stunned that people reacted in such a fashion to what he thought was an open-and-shut hustle. Now that Skeffington has passed on, the team is being led by a bunch of non-Rhode Islanders, which means they have absolutely zero connections and are left with a franchise whose reputation they destroyed and that they thought they could flip at a profit within five years. Why exactly are Rhode Island tax payers supposed to aid and abet such a scam?

At this point, with Lucchino threatening to pack up and leave town unless we pay his bills, I would offer a simple single word: SEYA!

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Elorza makes a PASS: new program pairs cops with kids as sports coaches http://www.rifuture.org/elorza-makes-a-pass-new-program-pairs-cops-with-kids-as-sports-coaches/ http://www.rifuture.org/elorza-makes-a-pass-new-program-pairs-cops-with-kids-as-sports-coaches/#comments Tue, 13 Oct 2015 12:52:59 +0000 http://www.rifuture.org/?p=53914 Continue reading "Elorza makes a PASS: new program pairs cops with kids as sports coaches"

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Mayor Jorge Elorza playing catch with After Zone students.
Mayor Jorge Elorza playing catch with After Zone students.

Mayor Jorge Elorza announced a new program that pairs inner city students with police officers as after school sports coaches. It’s called PASS, or the Police After School Sports program.

“This is a great day for the city,” Elorza said on Friday at Gilbert Stuart Middle School. “This is something … many folks have been talking about and working on for a very long time.

Elorza added, “Nowadays with the conflict we’ve seen in other cities, truly the cause of it is that the connection between the police and the community doesn’t exist. But we’re working proactively here in Providence to make sure we have those strong relationships, between our police officers, between the police department, and the community.”

The PASS program is an initiative of PASA, the Providence After School Alliance, which was launched in 2004 by then mayor, now Congressman David N. Cicilline to provide quality after school programs.

PASS has 10 Student Resource Officers, or SROs, who have signed on to coach basketball and/or flag football for students from 5 different middle schools – Nathan Bishop, DelSesto, Esek Hopkins, Roger Williams and Gilbert Stuart.

Providence Police Chief Hugh Clements said officers are excited to work directly with students, stressing the importance of having police officers building relationships with students and in the community.

Chief Clements addressing the crowd
Chief Clements addressing the crowd

“And in this crazy world that’s a good thing, that’s really a good thing because we often times hear about bad interactions between the police and members of the community,” said Clements.
“And that may happen somewhere along the line, but at least if they have a perspective,” Clements continued. “They can say ‘Yeah, but I know Officer Wheeler, or Officer Carvallo, or Torres, and you know what he’s a good guy. I worked with him. I played ball with him before.”

A former SRO himself, Clements said interacting with the students on a daily basis provides a balanced and positive feeling not only for the kids but for the officers as well.

“When you walk in a school, in a day room, in a basketball court, on a field, and you see a young boy or girl you know and there’s a connection,” said Clements. “There’s no question, we as adults, we as police officers, walk away with a positive feeling, that day, that night and going forward.”

The students pictured are members of After Zone, a program dealing directly with middle school students and providing them a range of opportunities. After Zone is completely free of charge for the students as well as provides transportation home, supper, and mentorship outside of school. After Zone is an umbrella program allowing students to experience a wide range of programs and activities such as: Downcity Design, Explore the Bay, and various dance, and hip-hop courses as well.

The PASA and After Zone programs are funded through the 21st Century Community Learning Centers Program, providing money to schools within impoverished areas and low-performing schools. Aiming to help the students, and the schools as a whole, meet core state & federal academic standards. Every year PASA works directly with over 2,000 middle school students in Rhode Island.

IGTWP_20151009_12_01_58_Pro__highres donated $40,000 for the development of the project and purchasing of equipment for the program. As well as the Providence Fire Department buying basketballs for PASS, the program aims to motivate and build community ties between students and the police department in Providence.

Formerly GTECH, IGT is headquartered in Providence and has been an active member of the Providence community, often times donating computers and other technology for libraries and schools alike.

“We knew from the beginning when we came to Providence. It’s the neighborhoods is what makes the city great, and the kids in those neighborhoods…This is where we belong,” said Robert K. Vincent, IGT senior vice president of human resources and public affairs.

Vincent joked that IGT “had the easy part,” before ceremonially handing Mayor Elorza a large check, and explaining that Hillary Salmons, director of PASA, and the others involved had done the hard work to make the program a reality.

Smiling with the check.
Smiling with the check.
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PVD City Council may still get vote on PawSox stadium proposal http://www.rifuture.org/pvd-city-council-may-still-get-vote-on-pawsox-stadium-proposal/ http://www.rifuture.org/pvd-city-council-may-still-get-vote-on-pawsox-stadium-proposal/#comments Mon, 21 Sep 2015 17:02:32 +0000 http://www.rifuture.org/?p=52812 Continue reading "PVD City Council may still get vote on PawSox stadium proposal"

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PawSox Petition 02While it’s been widely reported that PawSox ownership’s dream of playing in a riverfront stadium on I-195 redevelopment lands in downtown Providence is dead, the Providence City Council may still get to drive the final – and conclusive – stake through its heart. The Stop the Stadium Deal group announced today in a press release that it will file with the city the necessary paperwork to compel the City Council to consider an anti-stadium ordinance.

“The intent of the filing is to compel the City Council to bring the stadium issue to a public referendum,” said the press release, “and allow the voters of Providence to determine its outcome.”

Sam Bell, president of the Stop the Stadium Deal group, said more than 1,500 signatures were collected. He said 1,000 are needed to compel the City Council to consider a specific ordinance.

“If the Council doesn’t pass the ordinance unamended by that point, we will be able to force it onto the ballot by gathering signatures from five percent of Providence voters,” Bell said. “However, given the strong public pressure, we are confident this won’t be necessary.”

The ordinance would forbid a “stadium” or “athletic facility” on the PawSox preferred parcel, and would mandate to all new stadiums to “pay property tax at the full commercial rate” and that “No public money from the City of Providence shall be used directly or indirectly to subsidize or otherwise provide any financial benefit to any new stadium.”

Said Bell, “For years, wealthy owners of professional sports teams throughout the country have been using public monies to increase the value of their private investments. The voters in Providence want the opportunity to express a resounding ‘NO’ to such an irresponsible use of public monies.”

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