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Scumbag studies, Social comment, Sports

Baseball’s scoundrels

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With the recent arrival of a collection of baseball history books, I’ve been doing some reading. It does occur to me that of all the colorful creatures who have inhabited the world of baseball, some are honored whom I believe should not be–at least not without a fair presentation of their dark sides.

A bit about nuance, here. We live in a land ruled by single-bit binary logic: ours good, theirs bad; him demon, her saint; if you’re not for me, you’re against me (probably the stupidest of them all), etc. We developed greyscale and color photography, then forgot how to apply the concepts to life. Fact: The greatest genius almost surely has areas where they are stupid, and the biggest moron likely has some form of genius. I do believe that absolutes exist, but that they are the minority. I have a relative by marriage who takes it too far; I describe them as likely to protest that Hitler liked his dog and Jimmy Carter was a lousy president.

In baseball, as in life, qualities can be mixed. A player could do some horribly racist things, yet do some admirably anti-racist things. Is he a scoundrel? What percentage scoundrel makes a Scoundrel?

Labels are difficult, and rarely come without qualifiers. Describing human beings is messy. You can never quite scrape or razor off that little imperfection in the description. There is much of a person’s life we never know, and we have to consider the accuracy of what we think we do know.

This is why historians are allowed to continue as we are. While some rather famous ones aren’t so trustworthy, many do good work. Most of them do far better than (for example) that stupid book about Rudolf Hess being replaced at Nuremberg by a double, the real one being supposedly killed in a flying boat accident over Scotland. (Because you know that what the British really wanted to do with Hess is take him for a ride in a flying boat, and because it’s really plausible to find an actor willing to behave like an imbecile at a trial and then do life in prison.)

With that in mind…

Anson, Adrian “Cap”: player 1871-1897,  1b-3b, lifetime batting average .334, first to 3000 hits.

Why I consider him a scoundrel: Bigotry with a capital B.

Cap Anson was one of the professional game’s first superstars, with outsize influence on outcomes. A virulent racist, he used his influence to establish an informal but lasting color bar in professional baseball. If one believes in institutionalized racism as one of the most toxic manifestations of the general racism concept–which I do, because it has a lot to do with one’s power to oppress–his impact shows prominently. There were surely plenty of lifetime sub-.200 hitters as bigoted or worse, but that doesn’t get anyone major influence in baseball.

Why one might demur: Most of the country has always been racist, and a good percentage still is–including some of the most influential figures in the land. Why single out Anson when bigotry was the  white social norm? Any number of other players, mostly less prominent, might have taken similar stances.

Chapman, Ben: player 1930-1946, of, lifetime batting average .302; managed 1945-48.

Why I consider him a scoundrel: Anson would have been proud of him.

In 1947, of all the opposing teams that rained bigotry down on Jackie Robinson, Chapman’s Phillies were the worst and he was their worst. He’d always been a bad bench jockey, but this extension of it got him a sordid place in baseball history. It didn’t help that he’d always been a source of anti-Semitic haterade, so much so that as a Yankee player, New Yorkers filed a petition recommending that the team get rid of him. It takes a special kind of stupidity and bigotry–as well as pure evil–to thus alienate a key fan demographic.

And no, those I am singling out here for their racism were not necessarily unrepresentative of the times. Some were just more virulent, and/or in more of a position to do harm by their racism. They’re going to get it.

Why one might demur: I can’t think of a valid reason. Chapman went as far out of his way as possible to strangle integration and encouraged others to do the same. I have read that he expressed regrets later in life, but so have a number of scoundrels. He still tried to excuse it as just heckling, and that’s not much of a reform. Not feeling it–and none of it undid the harm he caused.

Chase, Hal: player 1905-1919, 1b, lifetime batting average .291, one of the best-fielding first basemen of his era.

Why I consider him a scoundrel: Because, by all accounts, Hal Chase never met a game he wouldn’t throw.

It’s not that there’s hard and fast proof that he bet on games, or threw them; it’s that he was so often noticed not giving his best effort, and there were so many rumors that he could be reached, that it’s difficult to imagine there being no truth to any of it–especially as, in later years, he expressed regret for having bet on baseball.

Why one might demur: What percentage of the greatest athletes of the time were implicated or fell under reasonable suspicion, at one time or another, in gambling or game-fixing scandals? The list is longer than you might think, and it includes…

Cobb, Ty: player 1905-1928, cf-rf, all-time highest lifetime batting average of .366; one of the all-time greats.

Why I consider him a scoundrel: Overall unpleasantness. One can tell this by the fact that when the lifetime MLB batting champ died, wealthy, paranoid, and cranky, only three of the ~150 in attendance were from MLB.

Let’s see. Prone to sudden violence, even against teammates and fans. Irascible at the best of times. Game based partly on intimidation (one can’t take anything away from the performance itself). Enough reports of virulent racist behavior that there is a whole movement to argue against that image. And yeah, late in his career, at least strongly suspected of the occasional thrown game; enough that he got more or less dumped by his team late in his career. If Kenesaw Landis, a far greater scoundrel in my opinion, had not wanted to keep his own image as savior intact–if he’d handled Cobb and Tris Speaker the way he’d handled the Black Sox–seems to me quite probable Cobb would have been banned.

Why one might demur: While it’s pretty hard to hose off all the incidents that testify to his racism, there’s also evidence that he didn’t shy away from helping black people over the course of his lifetime. It’s also true that he came up during the nadir of American post-Civil War race relations, in which the second KKK rose and black Americans were often targets for persecution, gratuitous violence, and were in the process of being driven out of many places in the North and West; it was a time where racism was the norm and the first big movie blockbuster celebrated bigotry. He said supportive things about civil rights later in life. As for gambling and throwing big league baseball games, there was a great deal of that in the first thirty years of the 20th century. It’s fair to say that Cobb was so unpopular and vindictive that it was easier to believe accusations against him than it might have against a well-liked player.

After doing some more reading about Cobb, I have a sense that his racism was not the virulent “enslave ’em all” kind, but the paternalistic “as long as they keep their place” sort. He was known to be kind to some black people, but to go into psychotic rage if anyone suggested he might be part black, or if a black person stood up to him. When one challenged his fundamental sense of entitlement, he is known to have lost his control multiple times. It’s certainly racist, but it’s a different kind than that of a Bobby Shelton. I leave it to the reader to decide which sort–if either–is worse.

Comiskey, Charles “Commy”: player 1882-1894, 1b (competent but unremarkable); manager over same span; owner 1901-31 (Chicago White Sox).

Why I consider him a scoundrel: To my mind, the true villain of the Black Sox Scandal.

There’s abundant evidence (thanks to meeting notes found in old files) that Commy knew the 1919 Series was dirty and kept it quiet–most likely due to a desire to keep the big gate receipts going even if his team was losing (and partly in the tank). A notorious cheapskate, he created the conditions by which a bunch of undereducated ballplayers might feel so unrewarded that some might listen to a teammate’s pitch to throw a Series. And when the heat came down, he took complete advantage of the bumptious naïveté of players over whose careers he had feudal authority given the reserve clause–he offered them “legal representation” in the form of Alfred Austrian, his own lawyer, who would above all guard Comiskey’s interests above that of the players.

Comiskey was a perfect example of the rich major offender exonerated while the commoners are railroaded into draconian punishment. To my mind, having him in the HOF is a disgrace, and he was everything that was and is wrong with a corporatist system that cares nothing for people except the profit that might be wrung from them.

Why one might demur: Well, let’s think about this. I suppose he was a builder of the game, at least of sorts. His example is said to have changed the way people played first base. Maybe playing/managing for Chris von der Ahe screwed up his mind. And the usual “everyone was doing it” argument does hold some water here, since most owners of his day were pretty cheap and took full advantage of the reserve clause; the counterpoint, of course, is the same as with Cobb’s vicious play and racism, namely that if it was typical of the times, what level of awful does it mean to stand out for bad behaviors? The natural assumption is that there was garden-variety bad, and especially awful.

Durocher, Leo “the Lip”: player 1925-45, ss (great field minimal hit), coach or manager 1939-73 off and on), four-time World Series champion.

Why I consider him a scoundrel: Not sure anyone did not.

Let’s see. Endless riding of opponents. Credibly suspected of petty theft in clubhouse. Credibly suspected of various hustles related to cards and pool. Lived way beyond his means, owing often and owing big. So consistently abusive toward umpires that he was ejected as manager an even one hundred times (and surely more as a player). Rarely knew when to keep his mouth shut. Four wives, and his advice on how to get laid sounded almost Trumpish in its disrespect for women.

Why one might demur: I know of no case where Durocher ever tried to pretend much nobility. He cared mainly about winning and money, understood well that they went together, and played/managed the scrappiest possible game he could. He was a smart ballplayer and manager, one who could get the best out of most people until the generations passed him by.

Since he was suspended for Jackie Robinson’s first season, it is sometimes forgotten that he faced down the white Dodger players who threatened to demand to be traded rather than play with a black teammate. Inexact quote: ‘I don’t care if he’s black or white, or has stripes like a fuckin’ zebra. I’m the manager of this team, and I say he plays.’ While no one who knows anything about Durocher imagines him a Great Racial Advocate, his own lust for victory did lead him to do the right thing.

Finley, Charles: owner 1960-80; three consecutive World Series victories.

Why I consider him a scoundrel: Because he treated his players like property.

It’s not like I lack company. Finley might be considered one of the most buttinsky owners in the history of a game full of teams run by egomaniacs. He had no baseball background (and zero respect for its traditions), and seemed to feel that owning a team should be no different in principle than the insurance company he’d built. His autocratic meddling came up with ideas like pressuring his players to change their first names for promotional purposes, trying to fire a second baseman for making errors, a designated pinch runner with no other baseball abilities, a mule as a mascot (encouraged to drop deuces in front of the other team’s dugout), orange baseballs, and so on.

Players and managers alike hated him. In fact, the only person I’ve ever read about who liked him was one of his daughters, who wrote a biography about him. (He cheated on his wife and was alienated from most of his kids.) Foreshadowing Phil Knight, he had the team wearing loud green and gold uniforms in many combinations that made lots of people hate even looking at them. I think it was pitcher Steve McCatty who commented on Finley’s open-heart surgery that it took eight hours, seven just to find the heart.

Why one might demur: Finley brought aboard plentiful talent on a team that had heretofore been in essence the Yankees’ farm team. I’m not sure how he accomplished that, but the facts speak for themselves, and this at least demands some respect for his understanding of a sport I’m not sure he ever played. He tried things, like Bill Veeck; he rejected the stuffy old-boy owners’ network (also like Veeck); what he lacked was Veeck’s instinct for what was entertaining, as well as Veeck’s ability to care about the people who worked for him.

Freedman, Andrew: owner 1895-1902; no noteworthy positive achievements

Note: this entry refers only to the executive born in 1860 and deceased 1915. No association with any other person by that name is intended, implied, or even contemplated.

Why I consider him a scoundrel: Obvious corruption.

Probably the deed that cemented him here is buying and then looting the old Baltimore Orioles–he released their best players so that NL teams could sign them. Especially the New York Giants, which Freedman also owned. I can think of some current politicians in my country who would shrug: “So you still haven’t told me what the problem is.” If people can’t see that, then let them see his arrogance, cantankerity, Tammany hackness, avarice, and mistreatment of players.

Why one might demur: At least he got out of baseball before he could screw it up even worse.

Frick, Ford*: NL president 1934-1951, MLB commissioner 1951-1965.

Why I consider him a scoundrel: Pick between the asterisk or his defense of racial exclusion.

High on the list is his special favoritism for Babe Ruth by the infamous asterisk ruling regarding the breaking of the Ruthian single-season home run record set in a 154-game season. As just about everyone with the slightest interest in history knows, Frick insisted that if the record took more than 154 games to beat, the entry in the record books would require an asterisk. The reason this is scoundrelly is that nothing of the kind was contemplated for any other record but Ruth’s, and that was because Frick had been Ruth’s fanboy as a reporter. Baseball seasons had often varied in length for whatever reasons (usually games that could not be made up, or playoff games to decide pennants); none of that had ever brought on an asterisk. Real fairness would be hard, so it wasn’t attempted.

Another reason is that he maintained the fiction that there was nothing preventing MLB teams from signing black players and was not aware of a situation where race had ever been a factor. In the first place, he either had never read about Cap Anson, or he was telling a near-Comiskical lie. In the second, given the success of Negro Leaguers against MLB teams in exhibition games, to pretend that Josh Gibson and Cool Papa Bell had simply not been good enough to help MLB teams was trans-Comiskical.

Why one might demur: Fair’s fair; when Jackie Robinson joined the NL’s Dodgers in 1947, not only did Frick not exercise his office’s power to prevent the signing, he replied to players’ threats of protests with the specter of suspension. Frick also played a key role in establishing the Baseball Hall of Fame, which I still want to visit, so maybe that’s a little personal.

Gandil, Charles “Chick”: player 1910-1919; 1b, .992 lifetime fielding average. (Also lifetime ban from organized baseball.)

Why I consider him a scoundrel: Ringleader of the Black Sox scandal.

Chick Gandil’s play would not have gotten him into the Hall, but it would have assured him a roster slot on any team wanting the game’s best fielding first baseman. A tough, rangy ballplayer who hit well enough and locked down first base, Gandil was a hard worker with a mean streak. He is infamous, and was banned from baseball, for his role as  a ringleader of the Black Sox scandal. While one understands the White Sox players feeling financially unappreciated by owner Comiskey, plotting to throw the Series was not the appropriate way to protest.

The Cincinnati Reds’ winners’ shares were $5207.07 each, so the starting calculus would be why the eight White Sox players involved would not simply play their guts out for that enormous sum rather than risking it all for more by dealing with crooks. Supposedly, the total on offer was $100K to be divided among the conspirators; if divided evenly, that’d only be about $12K each. Double the eventual winner’s share? Yeah, but what if they got caught? They did–and I would argue that giving Kenesaw Mountain Landis a pulpit from which to present hypocrisy is almost as bad as trying to fix a Series.

Anyway, Gandil didn’t play in organized baseball (a term I learned really means ‘baseball as approved by the U.S. game’s moguls’) after 1919. He died in 1970, somewhat repentant but never entirely credible in that sentiment. I doubt he would have regretted a bit had he collected $12K and never been found out. It looks to me like he actually promised the players shares of $80K, which implies that he meant to keep the rest for himself.

Why one might demur: One might begin by pointing out that most of the Black Sox were pretty bumptious, rather out of their league dealing with city-slicker crooks. That doesn’t make them saints, but it does mean they were vulnerable. One might continue by belaboring the obvious, which is that they worked for a first-class cheapskate and had no alternative employment options in their chosen profession thanks to the reserve clause. I suppose one might add that the Black Sox were acquitted in court–not that court verdicts or legal principles still mattered to ex-Judge Landis, armed with a mandate to make sure the public was lulled into a belief in the game’s ethical hygiene.

Grimes, Burleigh “Ol’ Stubblebeard”: player 1916-1934. p; p, 270 wins vs. 212 losses.

Why I consider him a scoundrel: A mean bastard.

The last legal spitballer (one of those grandfathered in when doctoring the ball was made illegal), Grimes was a fierce competitor who glared at every batter and declined to shave before pitching starts. He had a significant mean streak and was one of the great intimidators of his era. It’s not so much any one thing as his whole vibe of a nasty demeanor and willingness to throw at people. A good control pitcher, he only plunked 101 batters in a long career.

Why one might demur: If they’re your guys, they’re dirty headhunters. If they’re mine, they’re just fierce and unrelenting competitors who want to win and will defend their teammates. Obviously I go back and forth here, but when I imagine him stalking out to the mound after putting a new bit of slippery elm into his cheek before playing some chin music, I’m leaning toward scoundrel.

Johnson, Arnold: owner 1954-1960.

Why I consider him a scoundrel: Disloyalty to his own team in favor of a competing team.

Because, while there is no documentary proof of which I’m aware, the circumstantial evidence is that he bought a distressed team with heavy Yankees support and rewarded them by acting, infamously, as an unofficial farm club for the league powerhouse. Good players were shopped to New York in return for cast-offs who kept the Kansas City Athletics mired in mediocrity. That would be collusion, tanking, and a betrayal of the principle that a team’s management should seek to advance the team’s fortunes.

Do that in wartime and we call it adhering to the enemy: treason.

Why one might demur: Well, as mentioned, I know of no proof. It could walk like a duck, quack like a duck, and swim like a duck–yet be a goose, at least in theory. Some might buy that theory, even if I don’t for a minute.

Landis, Kenesaw: commissioner 1920-1944

Why I consider him a scoundrel: Such a legal showman. Today he’d have a daytime court show like Judge Judy.

Let’s see. Let’s start with the fact that he was a judge, which to me starts out meaning something far less respectable than what most people believe. He brought in autocracy, and a mandate to make it look as if major league baseball was a clean game. In so doing, he banned for life eight players who were acquitted in a court of law (never mind that at least half of them had it coming). If that isn’t a fuck you to the legal system, I’m not sure what is. He bullied, pressured, and intimidated people (mostly uneducated, bumptious ballplayers who had no way to fight back), in my view all in an effort to burnish his own Andrew Jackson-like image (and he bore an astonishing resemblance to that other old bastard).

And yet, once he’d made his Great Big Statement by banning all the acquitted Black Sox, his handling went much easier. Ask the shades of Tris Speaker and Ty Cobb, who only avoided the same fate (banning with questionable justice) because the game was now supposed to be Officially Clean. If that weren’t enough, he did everything in his power to prevent integration and perpetuate the baloney about “there’s nothing stopping them.”

I hold his memory in limitless contempt.

Why one might demur: It is fair to say that the leadership of MLB had been pretty much Ban Johnson’s own bullying preserve for decades, and it’s not as if Landis was that much worse. It’s probably fair to indict almost every owner of the era of sleazebaggery. It is also true that something powerful needed to be done in order to rid the game of the gambling plague, and certainly without making some examples no one would either pay any attention nor believe that leadership was serious about lancing that economic boil. History has mostly recorded him as this stern but noble savior of the game, rather than the ruthless and self-aggrandizing bully I consider him to have been.

Martin, Billy: player 1950-1961 2b-ss; manager 1969-1988; five World Series rings including one as manager.

Why I consider him a scoundrel: A drunk prone to punching people.

A fierce and scrappy competitor, Martin played rough and fought both readily and well. Let’s see: He was clearly an alcoholic, abused umpires (tossed from 48 games as a manager), and might slug anyone, any time, for any minor offense. He flipped a bird in his 1972 Topps regular baseball card. (The in-action card, fittingly, shows him arguing with someone. As a child, I got that card in a wax pack but was too young and naive to look at the hand down his leg.) He was outspoken, often demeaning to his players, and was frequently fired.

Why one might demur: Some of his controversial public statements were true. Even if he took his competitive nature more than a little too far, he was a sharp baseball player and strategist who craved victories. And as a player, he took modest talent and turned it into a career that included an All-Star selection through sheer hustle, will, and guts. People might call him an SOB, but not even his greatest detractors could say he ever failed to give his best efforts.

And anyone who fought constantly with fellow scoundrel George Steinbrenner had at least one redeeming characteristic.

McGraw, John “Little Napoleon”: 1891-1907, 3b-2b; manager 1899-1932; .334 lifetime, .586 winning % as manager with ten pennants and three World Series titles.

Why I consider him a scoundrel: Because McGraw was obnoxious, belligerent, and an unrepentant umpire abuser.

That might be why he was chased 121 times over a long career (though only rarely after 1916). Players had very mixed reactions to McGraw; some thought he was the best guy they could ever play for, and others wanted to go somewhere else.

Why one might demur: For one thing, McGraw at least showed open and public respect for the great black players he saw. I do not think any of those were still active as players soon enough to see the white major leagues welcome their talents (Paige, perhaps), but over the course of thirty years McGraw frequently contradicted the “if we could find a good Negro player, there’s no prohibition against him playing” hypocrisy by saying often: “I’d sign him in a minute if he was white.”  I don’t think that was without influence, McGraw being as noteworthy a judge of baseball talent as any of the greats. Another point of demurral would be his reaction to the Merkle affair. In 1908, Merkle hit a walk-off to drive in the winning run, the fans stormed the field, and Merkle did not take time to touch second base before heading for clubhouse safety; a ball, which might have been the actual ball in play, was relayed to second and Merkle was called out on appeal with the run not counting. The game was ultimately the margin of standing that enabled the Cubs to qualify for a playoff against McGraw’s Giants; the Cubs won.

While the media crucified him in the purple prose of the day–“Owing to the inexcusable stupidity of Merkle, a substitute…”, McGraw not only defended his player but gave him a raise. A capable athlete who had a long and successful career overshadowed by one moment in which he was called out doing a thing hundreds had done before and gotten away with it, Merkle took the stigma to his grave. Perhaps the greatest consolation he might have had was McGraw’s support.

O’Malley, Walter: 1950-1979, owner; four World Series titles

Why I consider him a scoundrel: Hey, everyone in Brooklyn does. I get their pernt.

Because, while baseball had always been a business on some level and owners had almost always been parsimonious scoundrels doing their all to make maximum money while generally undercompensating oft-bumptious country boys using the reserve clause as the weapon, O’Malley took it to a different level. The Brooklyn Dodgers and Ebbets Field were one of baseball’s sacred grounds, and he defiled both in search of more money. Had he sold the Dodgers, taken the money to California, and started an expansion team, that I would respect. I’ve never even been to NYC (except for a plane change at one of their airports), much less Brooklyn, but I feel for them.

Why one might demur: For all the customary capitalist reasons. His team and his right to do as he wanted; Western expansion was an idea whose time had come; at least the Mets soon came along to give New Yorkers non-Yankees to root for; greed is wonderful and beautiful and more greed is better; someone else would surely have beaten him to the opportunity; rah rah money money money. If you feel those things, yeah, you might well demur. I prefer to question the sacred principle of untrammeled greed, and I don’t think anything about this whole blog post leaves anyone doubting that.

Ruth, George “Babe”: 1914-1935, p-of; 714 career HRs, .342 lifetime BA

Why I consider him a scoundrel: What? In what universe are you permitted to blaspheme so profanely that you call The Bambino a scoundrel? Even his faintest damns are required to heap on mitigating praise!

As longtime readers of the site have determined, vulnerability to peer pressure is not one of my weaknesses. The fact is that Ruth was a bully, especially in his twenties and toward smaller players and managers, a quick-tempered and mostly ill-mannered lout.

Worse yet in my mind, he was congenitally unable to control his genital urges. I don’t blame him for getting laid, especially given that he was most often the hunted rather than the hunter; I blame him for cheating on his wife. “He was a pig, but he could hit” is true. It’s also true that when we marry, we make commitments. Our partners intend for us to take those commitments seriously, unless part of the commitment is that there isn’t a commitment. I think that’s rare. As with marital vows, Ruth made contrite promise after contrite promise post-naughtiness and dishonored nearly all of them. And the fact that he barely ever emotionally matured past mid-teen levels isn’t something I hold against him. Enthusiastic burping and farting, BO, and other social clodderies are unpleasant, but not the acts of a scoundrel. Same for being dumped in bad boys’ home at seven.

Why one might demur (rejecting “but he was the greatest ever” as a valid answer; I don’t care if he ascended directly to Heaven): While I am pretty sure that the Catholic friars at the bad boys’ school did their best to teach him some moral values, it’s true that he went from rags to literal riches as a young adult. He did not have the maturity to handle everything that happened once his talents became obvious. What he did have is a childhood of deprivation and abandonment. Go through that, then suddenly you’re getting all these nicknames, you can afford new cars every week if you want, life is an all-you-can-eat buffet, and feminine companionship won’t leave you alone. Doesn’t sound to me like a recipe for someone to act like a grown, intelligent adult male by 25. Or 30, though admittedly around that time he seems to have improved his behavior and started to act fairly adult.

Also in his favor is that he was a sucker for kids (and little people in at least one known instance), so at least he only picked on adults. You might say he was a scoundrel in whose shoes we never had/got to walk.

Schott, Marge: 1981-1999, owner; one World Series title

Why I consider her a scoundrel: Don’t know of anyone who doesn’t.

Marge Schott was reliably reported to be as bigoted as any executive of the pre-civil rights era (and some who came after). That was less the norm in the last two decades of the twentieth century, and her version of it was unbearable. She let her St. Bernards run free in the park, dropping frequent St. Bernard-sized deuces. She resented that the Series victory had come in too few games, cutting into her revenues. While I think that some of the loathing directed at her had to do with gender (as in, the men were expected to be this stupid, greedy, and bigoted, but a woman should not), it’s not like she failed to come by it honestly. She just proved that a woman could be as much of a jerk as any man. Hear her roar.

Why one might demur: She wasn’t all bad. She supported the local children’s hospital. She was certainly a pioneer for women in baseball, whatever we might think of the way she went about it. She cared about making the ballpark an attractive and somewhat affordable visit for families; enlightened self-interest perhaps, but still hardly anything but admirable.

Shires, Art “the Great”: 1928-1932, 1b; .291 lifetime, almost as many punches landed as base hits made.

Why I consider him a scoundrel: I just don’t like violent braggarts much. Call it a moral failing–at least, if you’re a fan of violent braggarts and think they’re the soul of Murrica.

Because he was a well-known braggart (for example, he gave himself the sobriquet “the Great), bully, and general loudmouth. He resorted very quickly to violence when aggravated in some way, which is as polite a way I can describe a man with a history of clocking anyone who looked at him sideways. He did some professional boxing, but found out that real boxers were a lot better fighters than reserve utility infielders or fortysomething managers. Later in life he beat a man to death with whom he’d been drinking, but got away with a $25 fine. I’m not sure if “Whataman,” one of Shires’ other nicknames, was given him by the media or himself. It says something that the answer isn’t obvious.

If that weren’t enough, he beat his wife. I grew up around that and swore lifetime and vocal opposition of domestic violence. My wife is a survivor. Choosing my words with some care, every time I read that a victim of DV has retaliated with success, I fail to experience sorrow.

Why one might demur: He wasn’t the only loudmouth of his time. Babe Ruth might have been the loudest loudmouth of his time (though Leo Durocher showed great promise in that area during the Shires period), a profane, fairly gross, and otherwise obnoxious man. Difference might be a) Ruth was by far the better player, and b) Ruth wasn’t the same type or magnitude of bully. If we could know the unknowable, we’d probably find that Shires was compensating for some deep anxiety. He certainly had problems with alcohol.

While I can’t be sure–until very modern times quite a few closeted gay men, which was most of them, married women and lived unhappily ever after with the women as victims of the pain of frustrated reality–I suspect a lot of overcompensation was in play. It’s not proven, but it would explain a lot especially given that Shires never remarried after his wife divorced his abusive ass for good. Evidently no women could be found who were stupid enough to do that, which makes me feel all right that my father-in-law grew up in Art’s home town.

Spalding, Al: player and sometime manager 1866-1878, p/of/if.; .313 lifetime; executive 1882-1892, marketer of sporting goods until his death in 1915.

Why I consider him a scoundrel: Because he promoted history he most likely knew to be bullshit. People who do that are moneylending in the temple and must be scourged forth.

The way that went down, to my understanding, is that Spalding cooked the books from the start. His committee invited letters only from origin testimonial sources who did not mention rounders or cricket, lest the public fully understand that the game originated from English sport. When someone blamed it on MG Abner Doubleday in the late 1830s, that sounded great: not just a Murrican, but a later Murrican Civil War ‘hero.’ (While hero might be pushing it a bit, especially as Doubleday is said to have endowed himself with the title, he was certainly a competent brigadier and divisional commander.)

And Spalding having obtained the baloney he was seeking, he ended the search. Baseball was and had always been the all-American game, solely invented here by Americans, end of discussion. Fucking liar.

Generations fell for it, though in time baseball historians destroyed the fiction. We might add to that all that he did to undermine the idea of a players’ union, helping thus to maintain the thralldom of players at low salaries so that rich owners could get richer.

Why one might demur: Spalding was certainly one of the game’s builders and pioneers. There were far worse people. If you don’t mind people promoting fictional tales as ‘history’ for purely nationalistic reasons, and you’re prone to whataboutism (‘so he was a jerk; what about many of his peers?’), no way would you have him on this list.

Steinbrenner, George: owner 1973-2008; seven World Series titles

Why I consider him a scoundrel:

Because his meddling in the Yankees was a sports story of the 1970s and 1980s exceeded only by Hank Aaron’s quest to hit 715 home runs.

Steinbrenner publicly and personally derided and ridiculed his players and managers, canning the latter with abandon. He used his great personal wealth to buy the best free-agent talent, which is not automatically the act of a scoundrel but certainly isn’t noble to any non-Randroid. He had unrealistic facial hair policies, made illegal campaign contributions to Nixon (whose misdeeds look almost quaint today), feuded with everyone, was twice suspended from baseball, and lied publicly (“I won’t be involved in the day-to-day operations of the club at all.”)

Why one might demur:

Don’t know how much one can really fault him for playing the then-new free-agent game for keeps; he did not make those rules. He certainly wanted to win, and as certainly did so. He supported numerous charitable causes, notably a foundation to help the children of police officers killed in the line of duty. As with most people, he wasn’t entirely evil, and he certainly thought of himself as one of the good guys. He just didn’t have a lot of concurrence in the public eye–and if he’d had a few less open and notorious feuds that sullied his image, might be more kindly remembered.

And let’s face it. Reggie Jackson really was a hot dog, if a highly intelligent and power-hitting hot dog. Billy Martin really was a fractious alcoholic, if a fractious alcoholic with a great baseball mind. Neither held back or ducked, and both had a few whaps coming–they were certainly dishing them out.

von der Ahe, Chris: owner 1882-1898; four league championships, entertainment pioneer

Why I consider him a scoundrel: Ignorant of baseball (as were most in his native Prussia), he made his players march like soldiers and tried to tell them how to play the game.

Chris von der Ahe was a character of the first water. With a heavy German accent, he bought the St. Louis Brown Stockings as a market for his beer. He was Bill Veeck before Veeck’s birth–but with less laughter. One could argue that he made the game somewhat ridiculous by bringing rides and racing to the ballpark; the latter got him in some hot water with the league due to gambling concerns (a good example of using a teaspoon to empty a swimming pool).

He was difficult to impossible to work or manage for. He insisted on doing some of his own managing and compiled a 3-14 record. Once, he threatened to hold back his players’ championship money. He was an alcoholic. He had a statue cast, set up in front of the ballpark–its subject, himself. (The statue was logically relocated to his grave after his death.) He was a living caricature.

Why one might demur: I’m a fan of von der Ahe. His team is still going over a century after his death–they evolved into the modern Cardinals. He thought the ballpark experience should be fun, as Veeck much later did using improved technologies. He had some winning teams. He was the kind of character that made one want to follow baseball and go to games. He lost his entire fortune and died in his early sixties as a simple bartender, so it’s not like he retired and wallowed in luxury for the rest of a long life.

*Ford, you asked for it.

Editing/writing life, Social comment, Technology

Editorial Maverick: Can it about the em dash and AI, please—right now

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I had heard about this, but did not imagine I would encounter it from a highly literate, educated person. How naïf I can be.

All right. Time to stand our ground.

The word on the editorial street is that some people have decided the em dash* (the longest dash we use; —) is associated with AI writing. It seems some fairly non-thinking people have darted from  basic notice of that computer-generated habit to: “OMG never use an em dash, or they’ll think you used AI.”

Poppycock, horseshit, baloney, and a load of crap. Furthermore, the stance of a writer showing minimal confidence in their craft.

Details:

  1. While I will go to war with cheerful ruthlessness to eradicate overuse of the em dash, it’s a valid and useful part of the language. I will not stand still while people throw it away because they heard that someone who doesn’t know much about writing might think negative things about their writing because they saw an em dash. No. Stand up and fight. You are ceding this ground to AI, which is not a person and has no rights.
  2. Who so greatly cares about fairly slow people’s evaluations of their writing that they will trash a helpful device just in case the slow people might think a naughty thought about them? Don’t spend so much time caring what knee-jerk critics have to say. Spend more time caring how well you are communicating with your chosen audience. (Although I guess that if your audience is dumb, maybe you better abjure the symbol so you don’t act upon them like the doctor’s little rubber hammer.)
  3. AI will evolve, improve. Think its makers haven’t heard about the em dash hyperdependence tell? Perhaps you underestimate them. It won’t be this way for long. While they are busy trying to make AI writing less stupid—and we can expect them to succeed by degrees—they’ll also start throttling back the tells. The em dash will be among them. Em dashes were not invented by AI; they were here long before the computer.
  4. If you write better than AI, it follows that people will realize you wrote it yourself and have some modest chops.

This sort of little ad hoc rule is no more than another form of conformity. Not a fan. All my life I have watched herds of non-thinking people let the world dictate to them the obligatory current views. The thinking people didn’t ask anyone’s permission to have viewpoints, nor did they ask for approval except perhaps from their educational and intellectual peers. I have seen fad after fad, trend after trend, come and go and fade into memory. All represented voluntary conformity for the sake of conformity, which is perhaps the filthiest language I have used in a month.

Nonconformism neen’t be stupid. Conform because a conforming act makes independent sense? Certainly. Conform because power has a weapon pointed at you? Very well; they can order you to obey but they can’t have your soul. Conform because you need to keep a job? Fine; work isn’t a place to be yourself, and one is a fool or a saint to think so. But conform for the sake of wanting to be like others, to receive gang approval, strokes from bullies who would be gutless without someone to tell them what they think? Give away your soul for the sake of a fickle approbation? Throw away a useful piece of punctuation for fear of what others might think?

Not sure whether I react more with contempt or pity.

Now let’s edit/writing coach like we mean it. Em dashes are a useful part of the language. Used in excess, they are bad writing, a lazy crutch to avoid recasts. The same is true of ellipses, italicized emphasis, adverbs, passive voice and other deprecated-but-not-rejected options that too easily become bad habits. Be judicious, save the tool for when it pays its way, and you are in control of your writing. Be lazy—use the tool because it’s so much easier than quality writing—and you’ll hear about it the first time you show your work to a competent editor.

If you want to stress over something related to AI, try focusing the energy on being a better writer than an algorithm. That’s more productive than placating people who don’t write as well as does an algorithm.

 

*Why the hell are we calling it that? The em dash is so called for typesetting reasons that no longer bear resemblance to the way contemporary printing occurs. It’s supposed to be the width of an m; the en dash an n, and the hyphen: —, –, -.

Book reviews, Social comment, Sports

Current read: Connie Mack’s First Dynasty, by Lew Freedman

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One thing had always puzzled me about the history of baseball: future Hall-of-Famer Connie Mack’s demolition of the Philadelphia Athletics after the 1914 World Series loss to the Boston “Miracle” Braves in four games (thus a sweep). He had such a great team; why on earth? It is usually presented as a mystery (and it certainly mystified me for years), and perhaps a sudden burst of spite after his team collective wet the bed against a weaker but hungrier opponent.

One of my favorite aspects of history is when reading the take of someone who puts events into suitable context. This, combined with a general decline in critical thinking, makes such work even more important. Take anything completely out of context, and it can be spun to mislead–whether by accident or design. This is why Freedman’s book moved me to write.

The book covers the rise of Mack’s Athletics to five fine seasons: four pennants and two World Series wins. That’s no joke. The team had the best infield of its day, numerous Hall of Famers, and mostly good (often great) pitching. And after the 1914 season, Mack sold, released, or otherwise got rid of almost the whole team. Who the hell does this, and why?

I’m sure that this is all well recognized by deeper baseball historians than myself, but for me it was a revelation. Several factors played in; as usual with history, the truth is messier than a simplistic notion but is much more entertaining. What was happening:

  • Spite. Yes, there was some of that. Mack felt many of his players were complacent, and flirting with the rival Federal League and its bankrolls felt to him like betrayal. He had considered most of his players like sons, as would be his way for the rest of his career, so much so that when the outgoing Bobo Newsom showed up in Philly to play for Mack in the 1940s, he greeted him with “Hiya, Connie!” Six young and grim A’s confronted Newsom in short order. “We call him Mr. Mack, see?” To a degree, yes, hurt feelings were a part of the process. They were not the only part.
  • Federal League. The Feds began recognized play in 1914, and plenty of players jumped at the big money. This seems to happen when rival leagues form, and Mack wasn’t a big spender on salaries. His two best pitchers, Albert Bender and Eddie Plank, seemed near the end of the line. How much of his team would jump? Mack didn’t plan to wait around and find out. This was perhaps the greatest logical reason to do before he was done to.
  • War. WWI had already broken out in Europe, a major distraction that wouldn’t involve the United States for three years but was likely to be disruptive. As it was; future Hall of Famers Christy Mathewson and Grover Cleveland Alexander were physically and psychologically impaired by the war for the rest of their lives–in the case of Mathewson, a short one. The uncertainty of the times had to play a role.
  • Confidence. Mack stayed in baseball for so long that he is often remembered as an ancient and not very successful manager in the 1940s and early 1950s, still waving players into position with a scorecard. He was much younger in the 1910s, and had built a winner. He felt, with good cause, that he could do so again. And he did, though it took longer than he’d expected.
  • Shibe Park. What would become a storied big league ballpark didn’t have as much seating as would have been ideal, which (in combination with fickle fandom and surprisingly weak attendance) meant that Mack couldn’t outbid the Feds. Whatever else one says about Mack, he was neither stupid nor innumerate. Rather than lose bidding wars, he declined to fight them.

I find Freedman’s reasoning thoughtful and persuasive. Mack evidently looked at the overall situation, decided that it was either act or be acted upon, and made some tough decisions. The result was the 1915 Athletics, with a 43-109 finish as one of the lousiest teams in baseball history. The Mackmen didn’t win another pennant until 1929. They hit .237 (awful) and only one pitcher won in double digits, Weldon Wyckoff–while losing 22.

What might have happened had Mack stood pat? The 1915 team would have been better (then again, it could hardly have been worse). It is reasonable to think that enough of the old guard would have stayed and performed well that they could have brought the team out of the cellar, if not into the pennant race. It would have held up the youth movement, but not disastrously so. And while the Federal League fell apart after the 1915 season, Mack had no way of anticipating that in late 1914.

History must remember that the people of the times did not generally have foreknowledge. They could guess, predict, conjecture, analyze, and sometimes do a fair job of figuring out what was coming down from third base. In 1986, few people knew that the Soviet Union’s days as a going concern would end within five years. It’s easy to second-guess, but more difficult to see the world through the eyes of the day. I believe that this is key to understanding Mack’s personnel divestiture. He was the guy in charge, he read the tea leaves, felt his feelings, and did what he thought would lead to a rebuilt winner. Which he would, but without a single player from the 1915 season and only one of his former stalwarts from the dynasty: the unforgettable Eddie Collins, playing a bit part at 42 and mostly a coach.

Now it makes more sense to me.

Editing/writing life, Homeownership, Social comment

The fine art of being a great customer: enlightened self-interest

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If you want a tl:dr, scroll to the bottom.

This wasn’t inspired by my editorial work, but by life as an American consumer. That doesn’t mean it can’t apply, but it does mean it isn’t written from my vendor perspective. It stems from my time on the other, paying side.

Most of us 1970s kids were raised with a great falsehood. Some of us still believe it a factual selling principle in spite of all evidence to the contrary:

The customer is always right.

No. They’re not. They can’t be. The very statement is obvious baloney. The act of making it is a red flag big enough to sell to China.

In fact, some customers are stupid and wrong, and they are rarely if ever right. Nearly every customer who tries to quote that fiction is either harboring a delusion or using it as a club to beat the vendor into submission. A fair restatement from a vendor perspective would be:

The customer is right as often as we can arrange for them to be without giving away the store.

Until we accept that reality, we begin from a place of unrealism. It’s not that all vendors always do the right thing. Some never do, and some are outright criminals, but let’s at least assume that most vendors adopt a public perspective of enlightened self-interest. While they do want business, they don’t want to make enemies in the process because that’s bad business. (Ask Ziply Fiber.)

It follows that they’d like to keep good customers happy: those who pay on time, treat them decently, appreciate good things, and don’t raise hell over trivial stuff. Some more entitled vendors might add a few clauses designed only for their benefit, and most of those vendors have a problem.

Your call is not important to us anymore, and how I know

Be a bad enough customer long enough, and they stop trying to please you in hope that you will just stop calling. (There are other ways of dealing with this. I know an attorney who charges what he calls the “asshole tax.”) Habitually bad customers have alienated everyone within reach, and might have no other choice. They’re the people who called the nurse a stupid bitch one time, but are now stuck with her in the ER and she has to treat them even if she still quite rightly resents that insult. As a pro, she will do what is needed and correct, but there’s more she might do if she felt motivated.

I know these things because I have worked in sales, and I also used to be a bad customer. I was raised to imitate many bad things, including a horrible sense of snobbish pretension. I was raised by observing what I later realized were serious Karen stereotypes. Once I hit my thirties I realized that this was misguided and selfish–and highly counterproductive.

The mental workings I had used to justify this to myself were that I never wanted to be deprived of the slightest bit of fair value. The world was a damn ripoff and by God, I wasn’t taking it in silence. I didn’t get what I wanted? I demanded some form of compensation. I had to wait too long? Same. Suck service? I’d learn them with a dime tip.

On some level I was right in some of those cases, at least from a purely pecuniary tactical standpoint. From a strategic standpoint I was losing the war over pennies and nickels. I had to learn the principle of enlightened self-interest. I had to realize that, as Venita van Caspel taught us back in the day, that I should look at what something or some situation paid me rather than what it cost me.

Okay, I was an ass. Now what?

I changed. I never again sent back an entrée, stopped talking to managers about bad food or service. If I didn’t like the service at a restaurant, I still didn’t tip; I just paid my bill and never went back. Ever, ever. Why would I want to help people doing bad business? Go on BegsDoor (a place that will help you understand how this country got into the state it’s in) and you’ll see armies of people saying “you should tell the manager about it.” Why have a negative interaction when I’m already not very happy and never coming back? Faaaa. I’ve already accepted that I got poor value, and it’s the management’s job to prevent that, so I assume they are doing their jobs and approve of this. Let them manage their outfit without free consulting from me.

Pay without a word, then leave. Not my problem. Feedback is for valued vendors.

Obviously, I still believe in fair value. My view of fair value expanded. My psychological state also has value, and I’m not going to screw it up because the restaurant charges premium pricing for cheap ingredients. I’ll go do something more enjoyable.

It’s not too smart to let past negatives screw up your present (that’s how old people become grumpy old people), so I tried my best to start each new relationship with a positive and open-minded outlook. Without that, it’s pretty hard to lay the groundwork for what  might become a great relationship. Where it went from there was up to the vendor.

It started to work. Having removed myself from the problem side of the equation, I gained better outcomes. I stopped re-using bad vendors–but if the vendor did fine, I would treat them right. I might dicker a bit over a price, especially where they expected it, but if I got a discount then I considered I had a higher duty to them. They wanted to charge me less? Great; I would make sure they weren’t sorry they’d given me a good deal. If I sensed that the discount might cost me more than it saved me, I would not ask. Some discounts are not good discounts.

There is a concept in Theodism (a branch of Germanic heathenism which I respect, though I’m not a member) called “right good will.” Simply put, it means that you treat your friend, sibling, etc. better than expected. The idea is that you don’t have to watch your value equation because they’re watching yours. They are fine with doing that because you are watching theirs.

This also influenced me. It reminds me to see the world through other eyes. What would make the vendor delighted to hear from me? If I value that vendor, I ask myself that question.

For example…

The dividends the overall approach has paid are lasting and warming. Let’s take the best of the local Mexican restaurants here (which sadly isn’t saying a lot). Most of their waitresses don’t speak a lot of English. I speak just enough Spanish to empathize, and have lived my entire life in the American West. Hispanic culture is a part of our region’s heritage. Experience with the language and culture showed me that in Spanish-speaking cultures, to speak badly can be embarrassing. I noticed this because the staff members were always praising my truly awful Spanish, and I came to understand the unspoken message: I am a courteous person who will not humiliate you.

Well, I wouldn’t be embarrassed, but I see what you’re doing. Muchas gracias, Señorita.

I adopted that rather civilized outlook as my own (at least in those restaurants; definitely not when editing, where I simply have to tell the client the truth). It’s certainly more civilized than bullying a newcomer who is doing her best, as a percentage of people would earn my contempt by doing. So when the waitress spoke to me, I would say something nice about her accent, or how well she spoke. Every time I did so, I watched the tension drain from the server’s features. She understood that this (heavy-bearded, old, male) Anglo at least would not snarl at her or humiliate her.

It was easy to leave good tips, considering the great service I received. I had done nearly nothing to deserve this but fib a little. How is that anything but an amazing deal? Best value ever: better experience almost for free, and walking out happy. Word will get around. Come back any time soon, and notice a special respect in some folks’ tones, eyes. Nice way to start off a dinner date with my wife!

There are times not to dicker even if you could. An example is my favorite sports card vendor. We met for the first time in a parking lot, and I looked over the vintage cards he had priced for me. The price was very fair, so instead of dickering, I pulled out my checkbook and paid what he asked. This was the beginning of over a decade of business, with the deals getting better and better over time. If I couldn’t afford it, I’d tell him so rather than ask him to lower the price. He might offer to do that on his own. The value was always there; it was just a question of what I could afford to spend on old cards.

We became friends, and we’re still doing card business. I’ve even sold him some, which brought the flip side into play. I tried to base the price on what he would consider a great deal, but wasn’t sure about what that might be. I had to push him, however politely, and finally said the magic words: “Look. This is the best chance I’ve had to treat you as well as you treat me. You’re offering me $150 and I think it’s too much. Would you consider $125 an awesome deal?” He admitted he would. “Then not a penny more,” I said, enjoying the whole transaction. $25 to do right by someone who has asked thousands of dollars less than he could have over the years? Barely even registers. I hope I get to do him a great deal again sometime.

When a bad vendor screws up–as, being bad vendors, they customarily do–they’re going to be off the list anyway. When a good one screws up, that’s when you really cement the relationship. In a previous city of residence, I had an auto mechanic relationship so excellent that I’ve been tempted to take my vehicle back there for service, three and a half hours away. Well, one day they gave my name out to AAA without asking me, and I got an inquiry/questionnaire about them. Now, I don’t cotton one bit to having my information sprayed about without my advance consent, and I am often inclined to be very vindictive about that, but this was the best shop in town. When my battery was toast and I needed a jump, they sent a guy out to do it so I could drive to their shop. Is that not awesome? Who burns a vendor relationship like that? More plainly spoken, who is so shortsighted, childish, and stupid as to do so?

So rather than pitch a fit, I sat down with one of the managers I’d seen mature over fifteen years. I explained why I had a big problem with the info sharing. He explained that they were shooting for AAA certification of some sort, and that it would help their business a lot. “I get it,” I said. “Normally I’d be pretty pissed, but I respect you guys a lot. Please don’t do that again, but I won’t say anything rough on the survey. Fair?” He was relieved and appreciative. Relationship preserved, message received.

In 2024 I had spinal cord surgery for a condition that would otherwise have killed me, with debilitating pain ultimately destined for quadriplegia and death. I woke up in the ICU and was able to move my hands, and I felt better than I had in six months. I’d never before spent the night in a hospital, and my self-adopted daughter and some very good friends are nurses. The worst possible thing I could do was be at my worst, and it would be real smart to be at my best instead. The night shift nurse was kind and did some small thing to make me more comfortable. When I said “Thank you, Nurse,” she told me I was welcome to call her by her first name. “I appreciate that,” I replied through the medical fog, “but I’m pretty sure you worked very hard to become an RN. You earned that title.” She was surprised but not at all displeased. Nurses don’t get a tenth the respect they deserve. Try it.

Word gets around. The morning nurse got the same treatment, and asked if I needed anything. I asked was there any chance I could get a good cup of strong non-cafeteria coffee? “No problem,” she said. She kept checking back and ended up bringing me four cups of the good stuff before finally suggesting this might be a good time to switch to tea. I smiled, laughed, and went along. I wasn’t very needy and stayed off the call button. When they had to perform tests, even when I wasn’t much in the mood, I went along without giving them any guff. They have more than one patient and the give part of the give-and-take is to refrain from grousing about when they get their periodic duties done. You help them, they help you.

I was home about 48 hours after they stitched up my neck and detubated me (that should be a word). Coincidence? I suspect that 25ish me would have ended up in rehab rather than just going home. He would have made their lives harder, giving them zero reason to make his easier. Better philosophy = happier outcome.

One year my wife and I were at a pretty nice restaurant for our anniversary. The kitchen botched up our order, and started in on a party of 25 immediately after. The waiter had the unfortunate job of breaking the news to me. “It’s all right,” I said. “We live by a simple principle. Want to know what it is?” He nodded, actually near tears; he knew it was our anniversary. I motioned him closer and lowered my voice below the din of a busy dining room. “It’s easy. Don’t be assholes in the restaurant. No one’s trying to make your day worse. Stuff goes wrong. I know you’ll take care of us. In the meantime, I’m here with my best friend.” Down came the tears, but he also laughed. He got the great tip he deserved, and we got free desserts.

Guess how many times that’s happened over the years? It’s simple enough: Just be someone they’d like to make happy, rather than someone they hope never returns. I’ve lived both ways and the first is far more pleasant.

Believe it or not, part of it is knowing when to at least try to refuse taking something for free. A good vendor who has a bad day will often offer you too good a deal, such as not charging you for this or that. If you have the ability to calculate a good deal for you, you have the ability to calculate too good a deal. If this is a vendor you want to keep around and make you a priority, you have two options. One would be to simply make the payment for more, but that has an element of forcing a kindness on someone. More tactful, and likely to be declined but very much respected, is the rejoinder to her: “Hey, I really appreciate that, and it says a lot about your principles. $X – 30% is too much, though. You still did in the end come through; it just went a little sideways, and we all have rough days. You still need to make a living. I think you should split the difference with me at $X – 15%.”

As Molly Ivins might say today, you could then knock her over with Pete Hegseth’s bourbon brain. She’ll probably decline, which is all right; you made an honest effort and she knows it. Even if she accepts–and it’s good to push a bit–you still got a very good deal. Either way, she’s not going to forget you soon. Not only were you kind to her on a lousy day, but you tried hard to make sure it was still a decent deal for her. Put another way, you did your best to be great business for her. She’d like to do more in the future. If it’s between you and some mean old bastard (the kind forever and ironically leaning into the “honored citizen” stuff, reaming grocery checkers for carding them for alcohol) who hammers her on price and then complains about any tiny detail, who’s getting taken care of? Who’s better business?

It works this way in many situations. It earns ridiculous benefits: servicing priority, better pricing, quality work. The objective is to be someone they do not want to lose.

I’m not saying that your whole purpose for business is to kiss your vendors’ asses. Every day my browser opens up with a news aggregation of listicles telling us all the things we should do to make it easier for people. TSA agents, flight attendants, truck drivers, etc., etc. It’s too much, and unless you are a professional altruist or have no self-respect, at some point it’s natural to ask yourself if your counterparts are planning to make any extra effort on our behalf–you know, out of fairness. Otherwise it’s basically: Let me get this straight. My primary concern should be making your day easier. It’s unlikely you plan to show much appreciation. I should invest half my energy in your concerns with what motivation?

A few small asks, that’s fine. Asks that make sense anyway, that’s fine. Have no goal but to kiss your ass? That’s not fine. I think maybe I’ll fall back on treating you the way you treat me. You care about me, I care about you. You show you don’t care about me, fine; you entitle me to feel the same.

I fail to see what’s wrong with that–either way.

So no, it’s not about being everyone’s buddy, nor about restructuring my whole way of life to the Suckup Model. I don’t reward bad business, and if truly screwed, my rages are legendary and my memory eternal. I’m still pissed off at those movers from Boise. There’s an orthopedic surgeon in eastern Washington I came close to decking. I refuse to use self-checkout and that now keeps me away from Blowe’s and Home Despot. I’ve boycotted American Airlines for forty years. I quit donating to every Catholic charity when they poured several mill into manipulating elections in my home state. Every. Single. One.

In other words, none of this is me cosplaying Barney. I don’t turn the other cheek. It is enlightened self-interest; I want good outcomes and I have figured out how to maximize the chances. I also care about pleasant interactions and relationships, and I have found a way to have those and the good outcomes. The bad ones can stay on my bad side and out of my way. I will reward the good ones emotionally and financially.

If I don’t give them a chance to be likeable and good to me, that’s on me. It isn’t always possible. In some situations I’ve learned that I need to put up an automatic emotional wall, especially with car dealerships. The more they go on about how they’re an “alternative,” “no bull/no dicker,” “believe in nice,” the more certain you can be that you’ll gain nothing from trying to develop harmony. They are sure to do something you despise because that’s their identity, but you need a car. So treat it like dealing with a fairly dumb bureaucrat who has the power to hose you; maintain your composure; and sidestep all efforts to “establish rapport” and “overcome objections.” Bargain as though it’s life or death, without remorse or emotion, and plan to walk away the first time.

Don’t answer questions that are none of their fucking business, but don’t say it that way; just move past the rude question. (I’ve actually had a car salesman insist on an answer to some personal question, and then get mad at me because I told him that wasn’t pertinent. Guess how many people I’ve told about that place, with its whole “we’re the nice people” schtick. Not that I’d ever dime out Wilsonville Toyota, nor in any way imply that they behaved this way. Of course not. They just randomly came to mind.)

Kindness and good relationships are for those where it will matter. If you’re forced to deal with basic evil, you are at complete liberty to think only of your own interests. They surely will. If you have a mean streak, it’s okay to bring it out when dealing with evil. In fact, I consider it admirable.

So what’s the technique?

  • Evaluate a vendor on the first transaction, and decide whether you care. If you don’t care, find another vendor for that or just accept that this’ll never get better and stay with mediocrity. (Often necessary in small towns where there are only so many options and half the time they don’t even show up.)
  • Be polite and kind to good service providers, and don’t go back to those who don’t appreciate decent treatment. If you have no other option, put up the emotional wall and get through it.
  • Be especially polite and kind to service providers who see people at their worst, which is accomplished by trying to be at your best.
  • Don’t dicker just because you can. First see if their pricing is pretty fair, and if so, just pay it.
  • If you go to a store and milk them for some free advice, buy something. Always buy something when you go, even if small.
  • Remember that you’re not their only customer/patient/whatever. This could be called empathy.
  • Remember that they too have to make a living. This too could be called empathy.
  • Don’t overcontrol when you don’t really know that much. If they ask how you prefer something be done, ask them what they think makes the most sense.
  • Do little things. Tree removal people working all day in your back yard? Let them know they’re welcome to use your patio to eat their lunch. Hot as Satan’s perineum out there? Would it hurt you to offer them some ice water? Doubt it.

That could summarize this whole blog post. Be kind and generous until people show you that you need to be selfish.

 

Book reviews, Social comment, Sports

Current read: Victory Faust, by Gabriel Schechter

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This is arguably the best baseball book you’ve probably never heard of.

My copy was a holiday gift from Mr. Schechter himself. I met him at a mutual friend’s birthday party, one mainly focused on baseball enthusiasts, and he was handing out copies. I’m glad he was.

In 1911, a farm guy from Marion, Kansas (one county over from the one where my parents grew up) was supposedly told by a fiction fortune teller that if he went to Manhattan (New York’s, not ours), he would become a successful baseball player and meet the woman of his dreams. Charles Victor Faust was not, shall we say, richly endowed with any better critical thinking skills than he was a pitching arm, a batting eye, or a sense of baserunning. He hared off to New York City to thrust himself upon John McGraw’s New York Giants, a team that had come close to glory in recent years but never quite made it.

Faust made enough of a pest of himself to gain admission to the Giants’ clubhouse, if not the roster. He proceeded to entertain, lighten the mood, and make a fool of himself daily. He was the only one not in on the joke. Baseball players being a superstitious lot, the fact that New York tended to win with Faust in attendance got their attention. They took the correlation seriously enough for McGraw to keep Faust around the dugout, entertaining fans with his warmups, absorbing the heckles and pranks of the players. At least, when he wasn’t doing vaudeville or sulking because McGraw wouldn’t give him a contract.

The pride of Marion even got to appear in a couple of late-season games. He hardly lit the diamond on fire, but he has stat lines on Baseball-Reference.com and I don’t. The Giants won the pennant, but fell to the Athletics in the Series. Faust had worn out his welcome and migrated west, giving up on his delusions of big league pitching grandeur but not on a generally delusional nature. This was before Portland and Seattle had come to embrace their quirkiness, and he spent time in asylums in Oregon then Washington. He died of TB in Western State Hospital at Steilacoom, WA, where it seems the original numeric grave marker has in recent years received augmentation from a plaque mentioning him by name. About time.

Schechter tells all this far more effectively than I have summarized it.  His lengthy research shows in the detail he has uncovered about a ballplayer who was otherwise somewhat of an obscure caricature of a ballplayer. He offers just enough personal comment to be witty, but never to slant the narrative. If you like offbeat baseball history, this book is a yes. If you appreciate quality writing, another yes. If you respect deep research, three-for-three.

Secondary market copies go for $20-30 at this writing. I looked for a way to buy them direct from Schechter (who surely has a stockpile given that he brought some as gifts) and did not find one, but affordable copies are available.

Book reviews, Editing/writing life

New release: the Entrepreneur’s Survival Guide, by Randy Hayes

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This volume is now available to purchase. At one point or another, I performed in most of the editing modes, but mainly developmental.

Randy and I go back forty years, to when he was a year ahead of me in college. He was always an unconventional thinker, a stand-up guy, and while quite bright, leveraged his natural intellect by seeking out people who knew things he did not. He was never for five seconds of his life at risk of becoming one of those stupid-smart people who get so caught up in all their knowingness that they resist learning unless it comes from approved directions. (Most people with that mentality get Ph.Ds and become professors. Academia is the only place that will put up with that crap because it’s common enough.) Randy is the kind of guy who, if he wanted to learn to skate backward, might just go to the rink and find some kids who were doing that, and ask whether they would teach him. And they would, because he’s very amiable that way.

He won’t tell you the juicy details, but as a businessperson Randy has enjoyed enormous success in some very difficult environments, notably investing. When he brought me this book idea, therefore, I was very glad to be working on it because I have many of the entrepreneurial wrong tendencies and bad habits that the book describes. I have taken guidance from him in ways that I see manifested in his book, and they are very helpful. For example, for five years now I have been carving out an hour a week to do CEO things, which I define as management and planning activities that are not doing the actual hourly paid work that is my main business focus. It has helped me to stay focused, to review a business plan, to recognize my weaknesses. Randy is an authority on this stuff.

Want a sample of the most notable principle of Randy’s that guides me? Very simple. Offer solutions rather than services. Think about what I do. Many editors think that their work is to change people’s use of the English language. No; that’s the car, not the journey. People come to editors because we are industry pros whom they expect to know things we can share with them. Editing a book ms is not the end goal; the end goal is the best possible book or other ms consistent with the author’s objectives. Editing is just one of the ways we can help make that happen.

I knew this intuitively, but I really knew it when Randy codified it. Take websites. No one just wants a website if for commercial purposes. People want websites in order to share information, answer common questions, describe offerings, allow viewers to inquire further, and generally present the best possible marketing and informational face to the world. The website just happens to be an efficient means to those ends. The web designer who believes that her job is to push HTML and scripts around has missed her real job and needs to remember why people hire her. So in this context, I offer clients the best possible guidance (including editing support) to help them achieve their writing objectives. It is wonderful when people want to become better writers, but sometimes a writer just wants it out the door and doesn’t want to learn.

Think that’s lunacy? One of my more recent clients was a nonagenarian with a bucket list book, a wonderful man who was a marvel to work with. My directive was to get the ms from draft to publishable, staying as true as possible to the au’s intent and experiences. I was approached, I believe, because evidence indicated that I understood this. He passed on, sadly, a year after the publication. He never made back his money and did not give a rip if he did. He saw his book in print, looking professional and with the benefits of experienced handling, and had that joy while he could revel in it. Mission accomplished all around, with the helpful intercession and interpretation of one of the best in the business, Maggi Kirkbride (who does not happen to work on fiction, thus the approach to me).

Yeah. Randy has that kind of impact. As I worked through his ms, I saw numerous areas where I could improve, and other areas where I already had good practices but it helped to see them codified and reinforced. This is why his book is such a gift for entrepreneurs.

When the original ms came to me, it needed a fair bit of polish and consideration. Randy began our relationship with as many bad writing habits as the typical college graduate, but the difference is that he has declared war on them and worked to eradicate them. The work has been successful. My task was to take the mistakes (comma splices, excessive adverbs, hyperdependency on parens and em dashes) out of Randy without taking the Randy out of Randy. His basic style is informal, friendly, and approachable. For the most part, anyone at the GED level or higher can understand all of it.

We batted it back and forth. Oh, how we batted it back and forth. Randy’s always coachable, and is one of those clients who wants to know why. Why do we do it this way? What’s wrong with doing it that way? The best clients, and the ones who get the most out of what they pay me, are always the ones who ask me why I did things. Sometimes they will present alternatives and ask me why those options aren’t a better method. Well, sometimes they are. Editing isn’t sitting like the statue at the Lincoln Memorial, a giant gazing down upon the masses. Editing is making written material the best it can become. If my client has a better idea than me, that’s excellent because in the ideal world it would be the author’s creativity that would formulate solutions. So I would toss something out there, and he’d often accept it or come up with a different way of incorporating it. I did the appropriate thing: beam with pride and keep marking.

The last major step was the dignified execution of a Faulknerian darling. Randy wanted to incorporate a marketing presentation that had been very popular. Why it was popular was obvious enough to me, but it also duplicated a lot of information. When I mused about that, the fact that he was readily open to the idea told me that he’d had that same thought. Protip: When your client accepts a fairly radical change idea with surprising readiness, it’s probably because they have already been wondering about it. I left the decision to him with a recommend that he fold it in. He folded it in. With that, the book’s last major hitch was handled. He’d even bent a little bit on one of our longtime factual disagreements; an amiable difference, to be sure, but he did provide enough context that a reader couldn’t just poke a hole in it as presented. Excellent; that was all I’d wanted.

What authors should know is that some of what we do involves review protection. The editing mind looks at what the au did and comes up with the most caustic comment a reviewer might offer (and we have the capacity, if we wish, to be much meaner than most reviewers; we just should not often want to be) if that were stetted. That editing mind then figures out what changes would render the possibility of such review comments unjust; someone might still say it, but importantly, they would be incorrect and probably wouldn’t even think of it because most people at least have a process for not making up crap.

This was a lot of what I did for Randy. I foresaw the spots where readers and reviewers might start to think he didn’t know as much as he purported to (which would be wrong on their part). I got him to make enough changes that those weak spots were no longer present.

The remainder is one of the most important books any entrepreneur could read. As an entrepreneur myself, I can just about assure even seasoned pros that they’ll find new ideas.  Randy is a good guide as well as a good guy, and he will give your fair value.

Editing/writing life

Editorial maverick: carts and horses

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Some of you know I’m doing part-time office work that entails a lot of technical editing. I like it: It’s an excellent company high up in its field, treating staff well and producing work of which one can be proud. Half the staff have advanced degrees. For me, it’s a little steadier income without cutting into my freelancing work.

While they were excited to bring a pro on board, I think some aspects of the change took them by surprise. For one thing, I think they expected me to rip their writing apart a lot more comprehensively; for another, pretty sure they expected some debates about industry usages. The best handling of those situations brings with it some lessons specific to tech editing but also germane to other editorial work.

We come across it all the time: this idea that editors are the people who go in and dismantle your writing with ruthless precision. There are times for that…but not when one is already dealing with capable and very coachable writers. If one of my colleagues’ writing were weak, I wouldn’t hesitate to fix anything that needed it, but even our subcontractors write fairly well. My work as an editor is not to criticize or correct; those are just aspects of progress toward the goal. My work as an editor is to help the content become the very best it can be. If that means critique and correction, we do those. If that meant burning a photograph of a lemur over a purple candle flame at midnight while chanting in Old Slavonic, I’d be doing so. In this case, the best way to improve the content is to offer minor corrections with sound explanations. These are people of science and reason who expect me to know more than them about English, and to help them become more proficient. If a para needs a complete recast, I’m glad to do so, but more often the need relates to subtler acts such as changing phrasal order for clarity and flow.

I haven’t said a word about style guides: AP, Chicago, etc. That’s because I understand that these are not bibles unless the management says they are (and ours sensibly does not). Style guides are like military regulations: They are for the guidance of command, not as straitjackets to it. The idea of writing something in a way that fails to communicate, but conforms to the hallowed style guide, is idiocy. Our management knows this, as do our writers. So the writers will ask me: “What is the rule here?” If there is one that sensibly governs, I’ll tell them; in many cases the area is grey, often straddling the gap between popular imagination of the rule and its strict letter. Join an editors’ group online and you can see posts daily bleating for help with some arcane point of style guide nitpickery they’ve been agonizing over for hours. Okay, if it’s a mandated usage, very well…but if you’re an editor, isn’t it your job to make the damn decision? Whose, if not yours? People look to us as informed guides to quality writing. Someone’s saying they’re afraid to guide? This is like a professional taxi driver afraid to trust/deviate from a map or a navigation system. Decide, and use the comments to explain the decision. And if the style guide isn’t even mandated, there’s even less pressure to conform. Do something intelligent in furtherance of the original goal, and help your people understand why you felt that was so. If you can be a professional editor, you have the writing skills to persuade and explain.

The other side that surprised my colleagues was that I take a very relaxed attitude toward industry usages, even where the common presentation strictly speaking violates some basic guideline. Should it be “small diameter poles” or “small-diameter poles”? Objectively, the latter; but the industry usage most often omits the hyphen, and we are communicating with industry members. It’d be idiotic to die in a drainage ditch over a hyphen. I’m the industry newcomer and this is tech editing. It is my job to drink from the industry firehose and learn language specific to expected usages. We should be consistent and clear; we should sound informed and intelligent; we should convey the views of highly expert people with professional voicing and presentation. If that means we don’t write this item name in what I consider the obvious way, because one of our people learned in school that there was a specific reason not to do so, I can either joust with my colleague (and his MBA plus thirty years of experience) or I can accept that he’s using sound logic based in educated thought. I should worry far more about helping my people sound their brilliant best than about imposing a foolish consistency.

That’s why tech editing is an unglamorous but very necessary field. A percentage of editors simply can’t operate without some form of Scriptural guide, and will inevitably find themselves asked to make decisions for which there is no clear direction cited in Chicago, and concerning which they thus won’t be able to convince the subject matter expert without that biblical backup. And yet so many technical specialists, unlike my colleagues, just can’t write worth a damn. They starve for editorial support–not from style guide literalists, but from colleagues who make them better and help them grow.

If I were starting as an editor right now, I would still set up a blog/website and I’d still take jobs involving manuscript fiction and non-fiction, but I know what my marketing would be. I’d imagine the industries I understood best and I’d start sending pitches to firms in those industries. I would invite them all to reach out to me with a page of text and whatever context they considered germane, and let me have a crack it it. I’d send back the samples in prompt fashion and see what happened. A good outcome would be a cost estimate query for a full report/manual/other doc, because then they’d be asking themselves whether this were affordable (and could they bill it out?). The secret of technical editing is that your client can usually bill their client for your work. If they find this to their best advantage, they’ll probably start sending you rush jobs with urgent needs (because they procrastinate or get swamped). Do them no matter how late you have to stay up. They’ll come to consider you part of the support system and they won’t want to deal with anyone else once they are comfortable with you. Nice work–you now have a client. Treat them right. Their greatest hours of need are your greatest moments of potential and value.

Editing/writing life, Technology

Editorial Maverick: tech editing

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My world is a diverse one, with wide variety between different styles as well as modes. By modes I refer to developmental, substantive, line, and other forms of editing. By styles I refer to the subject matter: fiction (with many divisions), non-fiction (same), screen editing (don’t look at me), and technical editing among others. Only some of the knowledge carries over from one style to another. One of my favorite people, the awesome and capable Maggi Kirkbride, edits only non-fiction. I know academic editors, self-help editors, and so on. I have acquired a skillset in technical editing.

Since tech editing involves reviewing and changing subject matter experts’ work (we call those SMEs to show that we’re in the club), the first thing that happens is that one drinks from the knowledge firehose. If one has little knowledge in a given field, the question is how one works into a level of competence. Much looking up of terms, asking of questions, and hesitation before barging ahead with changes. In this style, any reference that sounds odd could in fact be an industry term loaded with meaning. After a time, one gets a sense for these. I have tech edited roleplaying game rulebooks, engineering documents, and forest products analyses. In all cases, while I had some fundamental understanding going in (longtime RPGer; father was an engineer and I was a computer nerd; father was later a forester and I worked summers in a mill), there remained much to learn. Most tech editing work requires at least a good grounding in Word document formatting, unlike say fiction in which one can get by with saying “I’m the language jockey; formatting is up to someone else.”

How it’s different from, for example, travel editing:

You are less concerned with preserving style than with conforming the ms to a style guide. Most organizations have specific looks, styles, colors, and branding terminology they like to see. You mostly do not, for example, have to explain to sixtysomethings why they can’t use two spaces after a period just because Mrs. Blunthead taught them to type that way in the 1960s. Either the person in charge says one space is required, or mandates two, and either way, the tech editor can make a case but rarely gets to be the decider.

Your content is vertical in that it pertains to some particular field of study: agriculture, marketing, engineering, software. This requires you to drink from the proverbial firehose in order to absorb enough terminology and technical detail that you do not need to ask questions SMEs will find dumb and annoying. So if you’re editing timber industry documents and the term “board feet (Scribner)” means nothing to you, you must change that–your level of understanding, that is, not the meaning.

Rush jobs are very much the norm. People who write manuals, papers, analyses, and so forth usually take more time then they expected. Where is the shortfall made up? On the computer of the person with the red pen. What this means is that you will not always be able to make this a work of sweet perfection, and you must make sure the au (as we refer to the author when she’s not looking) knows this and has reasonable expectations. It will sometimes boil down to: “Look. You have given me three hours and there are eighty pages here, with captions, footnotes, graphics, and so on. That’s not long enough to do it right, but I will give you the best three hours I’ve got.” If the au doesn’t like that, then she needs to get it to you sooner.

There’s a lot of opportunity and retention. Tech editing clients are less concerned with price (they are typically billing the work to a client) and more with excellence and alacrity. Think about it. Suppose you run a demolition consulting firm. Companies commission you to tell them the best way to blow up stuff with the least impact on the surrounding area, best recovery/disposal outlook, and so on. You know secrets and they fuel your business. Your work product is the report and its supporting data. You can make it good, but you find an editor who can make it “wow”–and will, at need, make your report her priority. You love the new level of professionalism in the impression your product makes. You do not want to lose that editor. You do not want to try your luck with a new one, see how well they learn your business terms, or go without. You’re going to make sure you pay your editor. The cost is tiny relative to the benefit. You would be a ninny to do without that editor, or her equivalent, once you’ve had a taste of the good stuff.

What kind of editor can be a tech editor? I find it’s mostly the same properties as make a good editor of other material, but with an emphasis on adapting. Eloquence is less important than communication flow. You aren’t asking whether readers will like this story arc; you’re asking who your audience is and how to help your au convey information as concisely and professionally as can be done. You can’t go on anti-adverb and anti-passive voice crusades because technical writing often creates situations where the surgery is worse than the injury, if you will. Your reader will be in one of two categories: She either knows what makes good English (rare), or she does not (the norm). If the former, she will see that you could not recast those passives because there was no non-cumbersome way to come up with a subject to perform the action. If the latter, she just knows it reads real smooth and the au gets props for clear information delivery. You win either way.

It’s a useful skill to build, because some types of non-fiction mss involve tech editing skills. Textbook editing is a perfect example, its vertical market being very specific to a discipline and audience type. There will be descriptive paras to check for common writing flaws, but there will also be examples to check; sidenotes to review; ever the question of clarity. Will our audience understand the au here? The au engages you because she thinks you can make her book better. You adapt your work to what will serve that end.

Scumbag studies

Scumbag studies: Arajs Kommando Deputy Commander Herberts Cukurs

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Here’s a real prize I hadn’t learned about until recently: Latvian aviator Herberts Cukurs (pronounced “ZU-kurs,” I think–my Latvian is nonexistent). He is a reminder that one can’t carry out efficient monstrosities against other peoples without collaborators.

Cukurs was born in 1900 at Liepaja, Latvia, then part of the Russian Empire. Easy math: that would have made him just too young for World War I, old enough to see his native Latvia become independent for the first time in recent history. A bright and energetic young man, his primary talents led him to a career designing and piloting aircraft. It’s fair to say he was to Latvian aviation what Lindbergh was to that of the United States.

Latvian independence did not last. In 1939, by which time Cukurs was a little old to be a grunt, the Soviet Union absorbed Latvia without open warfare. Given Soviet treatment of perceived nationalist leaders, before long plenty of Latvians were ready to pay Stalin’s NKVD back in cold coin. While nothing excuses Latvian collaboration with Nazi genocide, there is a difference between excusing an action and seeing it in context. In spite of the Soviet Union’s own persecution of Jews, historic reality is that Jews were slightly over-represented in Communist leadership; considering their treatment under the Tsars, one can understand that. In fact there is zero reason to imagine that Lenin and Stalin would have led any differently even had their governments included no Jewish people at all–but a fair number of Latvians didn’t see it that way. Those opposing the Soviet régime and already motivated toward anti-Semitism might seek reasons to discern an association that Nazi propaganda would inflame with everything in its power. Scapegoating is both awful and effective.

This dynamic explains without excusing a fair number of Western Nazi collaborators’ motivations: Some were religious and saw communism as the ultimate threat to faith. Some had personal reasons to loathe communism. Certainly the conduct of the young Soviet Union with its mass incarcerations, executions, and the brutal starvation its policies inflicted on Ukraine, would be enough to make at least some people see it as the greater evil when Latvia and the other two Baltic states receded behind the day’s Iron Curtain.

Many Latvians despised their new occupiers and would jump into bed with any force that might drive them out. The fact that two Waffen-SS divisions (the 15th and 19th) would later form from Latvian recruits tells us something. That driving-out occurred in fall 1941, when German fire and steel cleared Soviet occupiers from all three Baltic states.

For Latvia, having the Nazis drive out the Russians meant mixed emotions. Many Latvians chose the invaders’ side. Cukurs joined a Latvian auxiliary police unit in German service, the Arajs Kommando, named for its commander. Of roughly battalion strength, Arajs’s men did the Nazis’ dirty work of eradicating Latvian Jewry. Herberts Cukurs was responsible for much of that death, personally or through orders given. He became known as the Hangman of Riga.

As we know, Hitler’s war against the Soviet Union didn’t work out well for Nazi Germany and most of its henchcountries. The Arajs Kommando didn’t stick around, sensibly reasoning that the Soviet Union probably wasn’t going to start coddling turncoats. Its members retreated westward with German forces, Cukurs included. He survived that retreat and the war, and evaded Allied justice long enough to escape to Brazil. There he lived openly, operating a prosperous aviation business.

In 1965 the Mossad, of hunting-down-Adolf-Eichmann fame, came up with a plan to get at Cukurs by luring him to Uruguay on pretext of a business opportunity. It was an ambush–but one that didn’t go so well.

Cukurs was a big, powerful man in good physical condition, and he fought back with everything he had. His fury impressed the Mossad agents, but he eventually lost the battle. They shot him to death, left him in a trunk, and notified the media. Had the original plan been to bring him back to Israel for trial, as with Eichmann? I’m not sure. What I’m sure of is that Cukurs fought back, was subdued and then executed.

There is notable revisionism surrounding Cukurs in Latvia and (mostly) in world Holocaust denial circles. The most common complaint seems to be that he didn’t get a fair trial. Considering the number and percentage of Latvian Jews that died without a fair trial, that argument can cry me a river. Simply collaborating with the Nazis was bad enough, but the deeds of the Arajs Kommando were as bad as those of the Einsatzgruppen. If Cukurs hadn’t wanted to be associated with and complicit in Arajs’s deeds, I doubt he would have become Arajs’s deputy. Herberts Cukurs wasn’t stupid. He didn’t book on out to Brazil because he expected that an Allied trial would acquit him, or because he supposed the Soviets might forgive him.

If you want to know how modern Russian propaganda got the idea to try and paint its former fellow Soviet republics as havens for modern Nazis, here’s the genesis of that. At one time, former Soviet minority citizens had in large numbers embraced the Nazi invaders and did indeed help to carry out Nazi atrocities. Eighty years later, Russian leadership continues to make a meal of that reality, “confirmed” every time an actual far-right movement becomes visible (unless, of course, that far-right movement is working in Russian geopolitical interests). The way all Soviet people suffered at Nazi hands makes all such movements (that are beyond their control, at any rate) naturally concerning to Russia, even when this amounts to projecting. Right now the Russian leadership is making former SSRs’ neo-fascist movements look pretty tame.

As for Cukurs, we might be impressed by his ferocity; as far as feeling badly for him, not me. Had the Allies gotten hold of him he would have hanged. His flight bought him far more security and prosperity than he offered any of the Arajs Kommando’s victims. I’ll save my sorrows for the latter.

Editing/writing life

A new sample critique service

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Some writers might want editorial input on style/flow/syntax/etc., but not at the cost of submitting a full ms for a developmental edit. A more manageable length would be a very economical way to improve one’s writing, and a good introduction to the editorial relationship.

For a flat fee of $50, I will deep dive on any writing sample up to 1500 words (an industry-standard six pages). This is longer than the customary sample edit provided upon request, and would give the writer enough space to develop a basic short story. In addition to my own detailed commentary, I will focus on any specific concerns you might present. Fiction and non-fiction are both fine.

The result will get you the frank truth that those first readers closest to you might hesitate to present, from a practiced eye with long writing and editing experience. Eighteen and over, please; I stay within my limitations, and I do not have pedagogic training. Younger writers should seek out a teacher who works with young people’s writing on a daily basis and knows how to serve age-appropriate feedback. While I reserve the right to decline to work on material I consider objectionable, in practice that’s rare.

To begin, get in touch by going to the To hire me page and scrolling down to the contact section at the bottom. I look forward to working with you.