The Yankee Fighter

This week's book for me is a little unusual, at least by my standards. I won't bother posting a review on my Web site of it. For it was written in 1942.

It's called "Yankee Fighter," by John Hasey. No reason you should know that name, but I have a connection to it. Hasey was my grandmother's nephew, and he has a pretty fascinating story. The book has been sitting on my parents' bookshelf for decades, and I finally decided to get it and read it -- in part because of my recent interest in geneology.

Hasey was working in France when World War II broke out, and signed up to fight with the French. He became a hero for his actions, and was one of two Americans to attend de Gaulle's small private funeral. Some guy named Eisenhower was the other.

You can read the basics of his life in this Washington Post obituary from a few years ago.

The book, though, is pretty interesting. Hasey went to France on something of a whim after a year of college, and got a job at Cartier's selling expensive jewelry (well, they don't have any cheap stuff, actually). There he served the rich and famous, everyone from the Duke of Windsor to Don Ameche.

Then the war broke out. Hasey first went to Finland to work on an ambulance service (he wasn't allowed in combat because he was an American). Then he returned to France, just in time to see the government collapse as the Germans broke through. It's fascinating to read his accounts of life in southern France as the Germans started to take over -- general chaos, refugees everywhere, shortages of supplies, etc. It's not a story that's told very often in America.

Hasey eventually made his way to England, met de Gaulle, and received permission to go into combat. He fought in Africa, and had his jaw and throat damaged near Damascus, which is the first chapter of the book. I haven't finished the book yet (50 pages to go), but it's strange to read WW2 accounts in which the author doesn't know how the war will turn out.

Hasey worked for Cartier after the war for a while, and then went to work for the CIA for almost a quarter of a century. My parents used to call him "The Great American Spy" in jest, but were in admiration of his abilities. They hosted a party for him in the late 1950's, and Mom says she's never seen anyone who was better at working a room at a party than Hasey. He spoke in a soft voice, of course, but he was worth a listen.

Everyone else in the family tree is going to have trouble living up to that particular legacy.

Living in the past

When Joe DiMaggio appeared before the public in his later years, particularly at Yankee Stadium, he liked to be introduced as "the greatest living baseball player." While there was no denying Joe's greatness, there were some of us who felt those words should be followed by the words "Willie Mays." Willie probably did more things than Joe, and did them longer. The matter also was part of the puzzle of Joe's personality, but that's a different subject.

The topic went away for a while when DiMaggio died, but came up recently at the All-Star Game. Who is the greatest living Yankee? My guess is Yogi Berra, who is in the argument for greatest catcher ever. I'd probably only trade Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera for Berra.

From there, it's an easy jump to "Who is the greatest living player for each team?" So let's take a shot at it. It's fascinating to look through the lists and try to come up with a conclusion. Do you value longevity or seasonal brilliance? Or a little of both?

Now, I may not be up to date on some of the old-timers' "status," so my apologies beforehand if I miss someone in either direction.

Arizona Diamondbacks -- Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling were great but didn't stay long. I guess Brandon Webb is about there, and can only add to his legacy.

Atlanta Braves -- Hank Aaron.

Baltimore Orioles -- Cal Ripken. He had a better bat at his position than Brooks Robinson.

Boston Red Sox -- Ouch. I think you'd have to say Roger Clemens, no matter how cloudy his legacy is now. Otherwise, it's Carl Yastrzemski unless you prefer the relative short-term brilliance in Boston of Pedro Martinez and Manny Ramirez.

Chicago Cubs -- Ernie Banks.

Chicago White Sox -- Probably Frank Thomas.

Cincinnati Reds -- Johnny Bench or Joe Morgan? Well, I'd give it to Morgan for longevity, but you could talk me out of it.

Cleveland Indians -- Bob Feller.

Colorado Rockies -- Todd Helton.

Detroit Tigers -- Al Kaline.

Florida Marlins -- A lot of good players have passed through, probably leaving Miguel Cabrera and Gary Sheffield to battle it out.

Houston Astros -- Craig Biggio.

Kansas City Royals -- George Brett.

Los Angeles Angels -- A tough one, as the Angels have not had many superstars who stayed. Jim Fregosi was quite good for quite a while, but Bobby Grich and Tim Salmon were good too. Could Vladimir Guerrero make it some day? Would Francisco Rodriguez qualifies if he doesn't go elsewhere? Hmmm.

Los Angeles Dodgers -- Sandy Koufax. Mike Piazza might have made a case for himself if he stuck around.

Milwaukee Brewers -- Robin Yount.

Minnesota Twins -- Harmon Killebrew. Tony Oliva and Kirby Puckett didn't play long enough, for unfortunate reasons.

New York Mets -- Tom Seaver.

Oakland Athletics -- Reggie Jackson. Most of their stars (Henderson, Giambi, etc.) haven't stayed all that long.

Philadelphia Phillies -- Mike Schmidt.

Pittsburgh Pirates -- Willie Stargell probably goes here because of longevity, but Barry Bonds' name lingers over the discussion.

St. Louis Cardinals -- Stan Musial for now, until Albert Pujols gets finished. Then we'll see.

San Diego Padres -- Tony Gwynn.

San Francisco Giants -- Willie Mays, but Barry Bonds' name lingers over the discussion.

Seattle Mariners -- Ken Griffey Jr.

Tampa Bay Rays -- Carl Crawford for the moment. There are a lot of contenders in the pipeline.

Texas Rangers -- Ivan Rodriquez.

Toronto Blue Jays -- Carlos Delgado had a nice decade in Toronto, so he gets the edge. Will Roy Halladay stay long enough to get in the argument?

Washington Nationals -- Gary Carter gets a slight nod over Tim Raines, who is very underrated.

So who are we missing? Alex Rodriguez, for one. Had he stayed in Texas or Seattle, he probably would win there. Had he started in New York, you could make a case for him there. You could make a case that he was on his way to being the greatest shortstop ever until he moved to third in New York.

Surprise visitor

The other day I was headed down Niagara St. with the intent of taking a walk on the Bird Island Pier in Buffalo. It's the only place I know where you can walk under an international crossing, and it's a nice place to stroll on a summer day.

Before getting there, though, I saw a spiffy sign on a railroad crossing for a waterfront park. OK, I'm as curious as the next fellow, so I turned the car into Squaw Island. After going down the driving lane on the railroad bridge, I was on the Island.

OK, I'm late to the party, since some of this has been around for a couple of years, but they are making progress there.

That part of Squaw Island used to be the city dump, but authorities have done some good work cleaning up the place. There are some small parking lots there, a bike/hiking trail on parts of the island, and several places to stand and watch the river go by. You really think you are a long way from the city of Buffalo when standing on the island, with Canada almost a stone's throw away.

Since the sewer authority is also there, I do wonder if there's a certain fragrance on certain days. The path should go along the water with a clear view. And the place needs to be kept up a little better. A little lawn-mowing would go a long way.

But ... it's a start. You can see a master plan for the area by going here.

One of the good things about big cities is that you can often find little places that are surprises. This is such a place.

Fast and faster

My knowledge of high school debating was just about zero before I watched a documentary on the subject the other day, "Resolved." It follows a couple of teams in local and national competition. You can find the review of it by going here.

We didn't have a debate team in my high school back in the Stone Age. Now I'm up to date on debating, I guess. And I'm not sure I like what I see.

What threw me is that some years back, debaters decided that the best way to cope with the restrictions of time limits in the format was to talk really, really fast. Remember the guy from the Federal Express commercial some years ago? Today's debates sound like that. Early in the movie, I recall that today's debaters speak at something like 400 words per minute.

At that speed, you can more or less hear what's being said. But it is certainly difficult to understand the material, in the sense of thinking about the reasoning and coming to a conclusion about the validity of the arguments. I don't know how the judges figure out who the heck won. As a result, nobody comes to watch debates any more.

The story about the kids were pretty interesting. Some fit the stereotype of those who usually are in the debating team -- in other words, nerds. But they all work hard and have plenty of intelligence. It's fun just to listen to them answer questions ... albeit at normal speed.

But once the actual debating starts, my head started to hurt. Whowantstolistentodialoguelikethat? Thisisavaluableskill?

All you kids out there, here's some free advice: Stick to the school newspaper. At least people will understand you -- assuming you are paying attention in English class.

Revising a bible

For decades and decades, the Sporting News was the biggest name in sports publications in this country. It became the definitive source for news about baseball. Indeed, it became known as "the baseball bible."

The formula was simple -- get baseball writers to send a story about their chosen team to a central office for weekly publication. It would be like subscribing to the various sports sections across the country and reading them all at once, in 1920. Or, it would be like reading them all on line once a week. It worked for years and years.

In the 1960's, the Sporting News slowly branched away from baseball. (For an idea as to what it used to be like, see a current copy of Baseball America.) It decided to move into other sports, perhaps as baseball became less popular and sales dipped once the World Series ended. I can still remember my first copy as a subscriber in November of 1965 -- Green Bay Packer lineman Henry Jordan was on the cover. I was 10. A newspaper, filled with all sports? Life didn't get much better for a 10-year-old sports fan.

The Sporting News even had top columnists. I learned about football from Larry Felser, basketball from Bob Ryan, journalism from Joe Falls (no one wrote about liking his job more), and analysis from one of my heroes, Leonard Koppett, who wasn't allowed to write about topical issues by the New York Times but instead took on several fascinating issues in unique ways.

The Sporting News plowed through the 1970's and into the 1980's, but it seemed less relevant as it went along. ESPN changed the landscape, as we could see the highlights of the night immediately rather than waiting for a description of events a week later. You could just see the publication start to wander in the wilderness. It spent a ton of money on a shift to on-line reporting late in the 1990's -- heck, I cashed some of the checks -- but it didn't help. As you can guess, a parade of owners followed.

Now, I wonder if the Sporting News is taking one last shot at glory. It has introduced an all-digital, daily edition. It mails the link to "subscribers" each morning. Supposedly it is at least 24 pages per day, and it's free. Take a look at it by clicking here. The idea is to be a national morning publication, like "The National" of the early 1990's which died in part because of high distribution and publication costs. Well, that's not an issue here.

It's a good-looking publication, with some valuable information. There's a little too much football of all types in it, especially in the front, but that's just me. I wish it would be easier to print, and you really need a good-sized screen to read it without blowing up the type, but overall it's a pretty good start.

In the meantime, issue one on Wednesday announced that the weekly publication will be come a bi-weekly publication in the future. And that makes me seriously wonder if it's the last step toward extinction for a print product. How can it compete with the gorillas in the room, the weekly Sports Illustrated and the bi-weekly ESPN the Magazine? Sport magazine had that problem and died a while back.

Has the Sporting News jumped from dinosaur to trend-setter, or is this just another step in the decline and fall of a once-great product? This is where the wise commentator says, "Only time will tell." But it's easy to root for a publication with roots back to the 19th century. How many are left?

Or have you not seen the Saturday Evening Post in your mailbox lately?

A slow death

It was called to my attention today that the Cheektowaga Times passed away last month. This strikes a chord with me, because I'm one of the many graduates of that publication.

The Times began in the late 1940's. Its editor, Willard Allis, was known for his feisty backing of Republican viewpoints in a generally Democratic town. It used to hire reporters/editors from the local dailies to come in once a week and help put together the paper, supplying them with a little extra spending money.

After I got out of college I worked for the Cheektowaga Examiner, the competition for a while, in 1978. We used to make fun of the Times, speaking as worldly 23-year-olds, as it looked like it should have been printed in the 1940's in terms of layout. Well, the Times got a last laugh. The Examiner was sold and then folded.

Fast forward to 1994, when I was unemployed and answered an ad for a reporter at the Cheektowaga Times. The mother of one of my interns with the Buffalo Sabres was the editor of the paper, and I got hired ... for all of three months. Mr. Allis had died, and Mrs. Allis (a very nice woman) came in once in a while to check up on her investment.

I was older than the rest of the youthful staff at that point, and they didn't think I particularly fit in with them well. But the editorial freedom was unmatched. I wrote some stories that won some awards in the state competition. And the editor essentially let me write anything I wanted as long as she didn't get sued and the basics were covered. It was great fun to turn into a smart-aleck political columnist for a while.

The Buffalo News came calling that fall, and I left the $6 per hour job for much greener pastures. But when the Times did an anniversary issue a few years later, someone called to do a story on my memories of the place. So I guess I left on good terms.

I don't get to Cheektowaga much, and I missed the story in June that it had folded without any notice. One of the Allis children, I guess, decided to pull the plug. Here's the funny part, though. If you go to the Cheektowaga Times on line, it's still there. The news content hasn't been updated, but you allegedly can still buy a subscription or look at some ads. And the all-Times softball team is at six weeks of publicity on the Web site, and counting.

It's always sad to see a newspaper die. At least in the case of this one, its death on line is occuring in slow motion.

The best laid plans

Sometimes a writer has a wonderful idea for a blog entry ... and then watches it go down the drain.

Such is the case today.

In an ideal world, this would have been a celebration of a British Open victory by Greg Norman. The golfer was hoping to becoming the oldest player to ever win a major championship, and by quite a few years at that. He came up a few shots short, as defending champion Padraig Harrington earned another title with a fabulous back nine.

But wouldn't it have been a great story? I was all set to compare Norman to, all of people, George Foreman.

Big George was proof that American lives sometimes have second acts. The first time around, he was Fearsome George, best known for wilting under Muhammad Ali's rope-a-dope in a championship fight in Zaire. Foreman, of course, played the dope. Foreman took a few years off in retirement, came back, and redeemed himself when he won the heavyweight championship at the age of 45. Fearsome George become Smiling George, and not just because those grills earned him nine figures in revenues.

Norman won a couple of major championships in his time, but he is best remembered for some that got away despite having late leads. In other words, when it came to closing, Norman wasn't exactly Mariano Rivera. He somewhat faded out of golf to take care of business interests for a while, recently met and married Chris Evert, and decided to play in the British Open while on his extended honeymoon as a tuneup for some senior events. It might have been a small surprise if he had made the cut, mostly because of his recent lack of competitive golf.

Norman surprised everyone by leading after 54 holes. He didn't win, but he finished in a tie for third and impressed everyone along the way.

What's more, he gave hope to everyone born in 1955 that their best athletic days aren't completely behind them.

And speaking as a member of that '55 club, it's nice to be able to thank him for that.

I just wish I had more to thank him about. But that's the blog business.