GREATEST HITS. Art Schallock turns 100 on April 25. In addition to joining the fastest-growing demographic in America, he is the oldest living major league baseball player.
In recent years, I’ve been starved for baseball news here in the High Desert Outback of the American Dream. Apparently the San Francisco Giants are no longer relevant given the expensive transplantation of the Corporate Welfare Oakland/Sacramento Athletics. To Gomorrah South. In three or more years. If they can beat back a November statewide vote to scuttle their $380 million freebie from Nevada’s tax base.
Mr. Schallock, born and still residing north of the Bay, helped the New York Yankees to three World Series titles, 1951-53. On the road, Yogi Berra was his first roommate. On the mound, he faced 14 hall-of-famers.
Ted Williams, the greatest hitter of all time, went 0 for 2 against him.
“When he was called up for his major league debut in 1951, the Yankees made room on their roster by optioning to Class AAA Kansas City a disappointing rookie named Mickey Mantle,” the NY Times reported this week. Now that’s a story.
Schallock relied on a tricky fastball and a big breaking ball “like that lefthander from the Giants,” he stated. Who? Carl Hubbell?
“Bumgarner,” he told the Times, as in Madison Bumgarner, the SF Giants 2014 World Series MVP.
It felt good to read a little about the Giants, even though I had to buy the New York Times to get it. Schallock’s full interview will be linked to the expanded web edition of this column at NevadaLabor.com/
Do yourself a favor and read his story, festooned with a palace full of baseball royalty from a guy who walked among them.
A TALE OF TWO CAPITALS. Legendary investigative reporter Denny Walsh died on March 29 at 88. He won a Pulitzer Prize for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat in 1961.
He had a talent for flat pissing off editors, politicians and mobsters with equal aplomb. He got a fired a bunch but “never-gave-a-inch.”
After he was axed by the fake news New York Times, he formed an investigative team for the McClatchy chain based in California’s capital. He was soon digging into Nevada’s capital. In 1983, McClatchy published Walsh’s story alleging Chicago wise guy involvement in the 1970s financing of former Nevada Gov. Paul Laxalt’s Carson City Ormsby House Hotel-Casino.
By 1984, Laxalt was Nevada’s senior U.S. Senator and media-anointed “President Reagan’s Best Friend.”
Laxalt sued one of McClatchy’s papers, the Miami Herald. It became a national sensation.
Walsh liked to brag that he never lost a libel case. This one was settled out of court and later revelations showed he was onto something.
But that was never the point.
The reason for the court action was to serve notice on the liberal media to screw not with Reagan’s re-election campaign or face hyper-expensive legal action.
The fake news media got the message and King Ronald the Vague won in a landslide despite demonstrable early dementia.
SPEAKING OF WISE GUYS. T-Rump, the hip hopper who raps America, recently compared himself to America’s most famous mobster.
“The great Alphonse Capone,” T-Rump gushed, “he was seriously tough, right?”
Trump bragged about being indicted more times than old Scarface but even got that wrong. Maybe he should read up on his idol. I suggest G-Man Eliot Ness’ book “The Untouchables.”
Oh, I almost forgot, the Orange Crusher doesn’t like to read. Just as well. He might learn that Capone got away with just about everything, as has T-Rump. So far.
Capone finally scored a long vacation at Alcatraz by the Bay for financial crimes.
Lemme see. Which high profile pol do we know who’s currently on trial in New York for financial crimes? Seriously tough, right?
THE RAWFUL TRUTH. Anti-womens’ rights crusader Beverly LaHaye died last week at 94.
The religiously righteous housewife hated housework — “the endless little tasks that had to be repeated over and over again and seemed so futile,” she said.
So she started a national organization dedicated to convincing America’s women that the Bible commands, commends and condemns them to what the Puritans called “huswifery.”
“This is a truly liberated woman,” she said, channeling the Almighty.
“Submission is God’s design for woman.”
I once heard a prominent Nevada Mormon bishop praise his brilliant mom for “choosing to submit to my father.” Kink blithely unintended.
A photo of Ms. LaHaye with Ronald Reagan circulated with her obit this week. She wears a suit therein. Hmmm…that rang a bell.
Wall Street Journal Pulitzer winner Susan Faludi authored a two-inch thick 1991 bestselling masterpiece entitled “Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women.”
She interviewed several anti-feminist females who were walking examples of women’s liberation, including Mrs. LaHaye. They wore business attire, headed organizations, got involved politically and didn’t do windows.
Echoing Faludi, LaHayes’ NYTimes obituary noted “In some ways, Mrs. LaHaye’s life was a model of the female empowerment championed by the feminist movement.”
Ms. Faludi concluded that “the activists of Concerned Women for America (LaHaye’s organization) report to their offices in their suits, issue press releases demanding that women return to the home, and never see a contradiction. By divorcing their personal liberation from their public stands on sexual politics, they could privately take advantage of feminism while publicly deploring its influence. They could indeed ‘have it all’ — by working to prevent other women from having that same opportunity.” (“Backlash,” page 256)
The fight goes forward. The dream will never die.
Vaxx up, stay safe, pray for Ukraine and almost 100 other currently war-torn lands.
Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno.
Andrew Quarantino Barbáno is a 55-year Nevadan, editor of NevadaLabor.com and a member of the César Chávez Nevada Labor Hall of Fame. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Tribune since 1988. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us
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