The Mets Championship Belt

For this post, I'm borrowing an idea from Bill Simmons.  He's written several column about "championship belts" in various disciplines, my favorite of which was The Action Hero Championship Belt.  I've decided to apply this idea to baseball, specifically the New York Mets.  Here are the rules  ...

1) The "championship belt" holder for a given team is generally the best player on a team at given time.  However ...

2) A great player doesn't have to relinquish the belt because of just one bad season.  For example, here are Mike Schmidt's home run totals with the Phillies from 1974 to 1987.  The numbers in blue indicate years he led the league in homers.

1974  36

1975  38

1976  38

1977  38

1978  21

1979  45

1980  48

1981  31 ( strike-shortened 102 game season - on pace for 49 over full season )

1982  35

1983  40

1984  36

1985  33

1986  37

1987  35

Schmidt had an off-year in 1978, but he did not lose the Phillies Championship Belt.

3) A great player could even retain the belt for several consecutive bad seasons at the end of his career depending on ...
- how great the player was
- how great the typical belt-holder is for the player's franchise
- whether or not another great player is on the horizon as the older great player declines.

4) The "championship belt" title could be vacant for a period of time if the team does not have a great player during that period of time.  Whether or not a player can be considered a "great" player for the team is tied to the history of the franchise.  It's a lot easier to be a "great" belt-worthy Marlin than a "great" Yankee.

5) The belt can be awarded retroactively.  For example, when Mike Schmidt had his bad year in 1978, he would not have been stripped of the belt at the time.  However, let's say the Phillies best player in 1978 had been a Willie Mays caliber player who wound up being  better than Mike Schmidt for the rest of his career.  Well, in that case, this hypothetical "Willie Mays" of the Phillies would retroactively be awarded the 1978 Phillies Championship Belt years after 1978.

In other to further illustrate these principals, I'm going to list the holders of the Yankees Championship belt from 1920 until the present.

Babe Ruth : 1920 - 1934

There's no doubt Gehrig was more valuable than Babe Ruth in 1933 and 1934, and Gehrig was clearly not a flash-in-the-pan who was unworthy of the Yankees belt.  However, Babe Ruth is Babe Ruth.  Babe Ruth was going the be the Yankees belt holder as long as he wore pinstripes.

Lou Gehrig : 1934 - 1938

By 1938, Lou Gehrig was already feeling the effect of the ALS that would end his life 3 years later.  Joe DiMaggio was certainly better in 1938 than Gehrig, but if the Yankees belt has been a real thing, nobody was taking it away from Gehrig until he walked off the field 8 games into the 1939 season.

Joe DiMaggio : 1939 - 1951

Yogi Berra was a great player and great Yankee.  Yogi was better than DiMaggio in 1950 and 1951 ( when Yogi won his first MVP award ), but much like Ruth, DiMaggio was iconic.  Ernest Hemingway didn't write about "the great Berra".  Nobody wrote songs about "Joltin' Yogi Berra".  DiMaggio relinquished the Yankees belt when he walked out of the Yankees clubhouse for the last time.

Mickey Mantle : 1952 - 1968

Sorry, Yogi.  You would have been a belt-holder for at least a decade for almost any other team, but these are the Yankees we're talking about.  Berra did win the MVP in 1954 and 1955, but Mantle is up there on the Yankees Mount Rushmore with Ruth/Gehrig/DiMaggio, and actually had far superior advanced stats than Berra in 1954 and 1955.   While it's clear Mantle was washed-up from 1965 to 1968, there wasn't actually any Yankees ready to seize the belt in the those years.  Mantle was so well-respected at the end of his career that 1968 MVP Denny McLain gave Mantle a going-away gift by  grooving a gopher ball to Mantle  10 days before Mantle's career ended.

1969 : Vacant

After 49 seasons of Ruth/Gerhrig/DiMaggio/Mantle as the standard bearers of the Yankees, nobody on the sub-500 1969 team was worthy to wear the Yankees'belt.

Thurman Munson : 1970 - 1976

Roy White was actually the Yankees best player in 1970, but 1970 was also the Rookie of the Year campaign for a player who would lead the Yankees to their first pennant in 12 years during his MVP season of 1976.  There's no doubt Thurman was the heart and soul of those 1970's Yankees until his tragic death in 1979.  One could argue that the belt should have belonged to Thurman until he died, but I think the belt changed hands when a force of nature arrived in the Bronx in 1977.

Reggie Jackson : 1977 - 1981

I've seen a lot of impressive things in my 40+ years of watching baseball, buy it's hard to top what Reggie did in his last 3 at bats of the 1977 World Series.  Reggie hit first-pitch home runs off of three different pitchers, the last of which was a mammoth shot into the black seats beyond the center field fence at Yankees Stadium.



Soon after Reggie arrived in New York, he was quoted as saying ...

"This team, it all flows from me. I’m the straw that stirs the drink. Maybe I should say me and Munson, but he can only stir it bad.” *

* Reggie now denies he ever said that.

Considering his alleged insult of Munson, lots of Yankees fans ( and I'm sure the players ) hesitated to accept Reggie as one of their own, but nobody could deny he was king of the Yankees hill after that night in October.

Back 1973 when Reggie was on his way to winning the MVP ( and the 2nd of 3 straight World Series titles ) with the A's, he said ...

"If I was playing in New York, they'd name a candy bar after me."

Of course, Reggie turned out to be right ...

Not gonna lie - it was a pretty good candy bar.  I had a bunch of them in my day.

BTW, to follow up on his three home runs to end his 1977 World Series performance, he homered in his first Yankees Stadium at bat in 1978.  The fans showered the field with Reggie bars.

1982 - 1983 : Vacant

Dave Winfield was a great player, a worthy Hall-of-Famer, and probably the best all-around player for the Yankees in the 80's.  However, be it fair or not, his 1-22 performance in the 1981 World Series ( and George Steinbrenner's "Mr. May" quote ) will always be one of the first things people think about when they think of Dave Windfield's Yankees career.

Don Mattingly : 1984 - 1995

Donnie Baseball's last great season was in 1987.  After that, his chronic back problems limited him to being a good player rather than a great player.  While other Yankees certainly had better seasons than Mattingly from 1988 to 1995, there is no doubt that the Yankees were Mattingly's team up to and including his fine performance in the 1995 playoffs ( .417 batting average and a 1.148 OPS over 5 games ).

Derek Jeter : 1996 - 2014

Derek wasn't always the best or most valuable Yankee during his career ( especially during the last few years of his career ), and it could be argued that closer Mariano Rivera was the biggest reason why the Yankees won 5 World Series ( and 7 AL pennants ) during the Jeter years ( I'd be one to make that argument ), but Jeter was the easily the most iconic Yankee since Mantle and probably the most revered Yankee since Dimaggio.  I'll always contend that he wasn't as good as Yankees fans think he is ( He's certainly a worthy first ballot Hall-of-Famer, but Yankees fans treated him like he was the best player in baseball, which he never was at any point during his career. ), but in Yankees circles, he's a legend whose shoes will be extremely difficult to fill.

2015 - 2016 : Vacant

Nobody has filled Jeter's shoes yet, and nobody will until the Yankees start winning pennants again.

Ok, so with that ( longer than anticipated ) preliminary complete, let's get to the Mets.

1962 - 1966 : Vacant

If you know anything about the Mets' history, there is no need for any explanation.

Tom Seaver: 1967 to June 15, 1997

Mets fans probably don't need of summary of Tom Seaver's resume to agree with this, but I'm going to list a few key points anyway.

1967 Rookie of the Year

1969 : Went 25 -7 with a 2.21 ERA, won the Cy Young Award, and most importantly, led the Miracle Mets to their first World Series title ( The Mets has finished in 9th or 10th place every season prior to 1969 )

April 22, 1970 : Struck out the last 10 batters of a game to finish a game with 19 strikeouts.  No Major League pitcher before or since has struck out 10 batters in a row.  Who knows how many more he could have struck out in a row if the game has not ended?

1973: Wins his second Cy Young Award and and leads the Mets to their 2nd National League Championship.

1975: Wins his 3rd Cy Young Award.  At the time, no pitcher has won more than 3 Cy Young Awards.

1976 : Seaver struck out 235 batters that season, marking the 9th consecutive season he'd struck out 200 or more batters.  No pitcher before or since has matched such a streak.  Not Nolan Ryan, not Randy Johnson, not Walter Johnson, not Bob Feller, not Pedro Martinez, not anyone.  ( BTW, in case you are wondering.  If the 1981 strike has not happened and Ryan has struck out 200 or more in 1981, his best streak still would have only been 7 years ( from 1976 to 1982 ).  Also, Randy Johnson did manage to keep his 200-strikeout season streak going by striking out 204 in the strike-shortened 1994 season ( and 294 in the slightly shortened  1995 season ), but he never stuck out 200 or more for 9 straight season because he struck out less than 200 in injury-plagued 1996 and 2003 seasons.  Also note that Pedro Martinez could have had 9 straight 200 strikeout seasons if 1994 and 1995 has been full seasons, but his 174 K's in 144 teams games in 1995 is only on a pace for 195 strikeouts in a 162-game season. )

Seaver was, as his nickname spelled out was "The Franchise".  The first words of his Hall of Fame plaque summed up his impact perfectly.

"Franchise power pitcher who transformed Mets from lovable losers into formidable foes."

 I was born in January 1970 into a family of Mets fans still basking of the glow of the Mets World Series triumph in October 1969.  Seaver was almost like a patron saint in my family.  Family members used to tell me I looked like Seaver in hushed tones, as if it connoted something divine.  We were all devastated when the Mets traded Seaver on the night of June 15, 1977.  After that, nothing would be the same for a long time.

June 15, 1977 - June 15, 1983 : Vacant

It was a long six years in the wilderness.  The Mets finished in last or next to last every year from 1977 to 1983.  However, things started to change when the Mets made the best trade in team history on June 15, 1983.

Keith Hernandez : June 15, 1983 - 1984

With apologies to Mike Piazza,  Donn Clendenon, Gary Carter, Syndergaard/d'Arnaud, and Yoenis Cespedes, no trade has had a greater positive impact on the Mets than the deal that sent Keith Hernandez from the Cardinals to the Mets on June 15, 1983.

Much like Seaver did in the late 60's, Hernandez was the leading force behind the Mets transforming from perennial losers into a championship team.  He led the Mets to a 90-win 2nd place finish in 1984 and finished second in the MVP voting.  He was great in 1985 and 1986 as well, but he lost the belt in 1985, becasue Dwight Gooden's 1985 season was the best season a pitcher has ever had since baseball started to use a lively ball with a cork center in 1920 ( prior to 1920, baseball did not have cork centers and pitchers dominated the game. ).

Dwight Gooden : 1985 - 1986

Gooden had a sub-par year in 1986 ( 17 - 6 /  2.84 ERA / 200 Ks ) by his 1985 standards ( 24 - 4 / 1.53 ERA / 268 Ks ), but the Mets won the World Series in 1986, so the glow of his 1985 season was still shining through  his 1986 season.  However, when checked in drug rehab just before the 1987 season, that glow was gone forever.

Darryl Strawberry : 1987 - 1990

Darryl from 1987 - 1990 :

1987 : 39 HR, 104 RBI
1988 : 39 HR, 101 RBI
1989 : 29 HR, 77 RBI ( only played 134 games that year )
1990 : 37 HR, 108 RBI

He could have been a lot greater if not for the booze and coke, but he was pretty damn good anyway.  In 1988 he led the NL in OPS and OPS+.

David Cone : 1991 - August 27, 1992

After Strawberry signed as a free agent with the Dodgers after the 1990 season, both the Mets and Darryl went into a tailspin ( Darryl had a pretty good season in 1991, but he was never a star after that ).  The only bright spot on the Mets in the years immediately following Darryl's departure was David Cone.  He led the National Leauge in strikeouts in 1991 ( following up a 1990 season when he led the league in strikeouts ) and was leading the league in strikeouts in 1992 when the Mets traded him.  He also had a 19-strikeout game in 1991.

Now that I think of it, it's a bit unfair of me to say the Cone was the only bright spot after Darryl left considering that Howard Johnson led the National League in homers and RBIs in 1991 ( while also stealing 30 bases to record his 3rd 30-homer/30-steal season ).  However,  as important as Hojo was to the Mets 1986 title team, the guy could never manage to string 2 good seasons together.

 August 27, 1992 - 1995 : Vacant

The less that can be said about the awful 1993 season and the false promise of Generation K, the better.

Todd Hundely : 1996

Yeah, I know.  After documenting Yankees belt holders like Ruth, Gerhig, DiMaggio, and Mantle earlier in this post, it's pretty pathetic that Todd Hundely could be considered worthy of the Mets belt, but as the Mets stumbled to their 6-straight post-Strawberry losing season in 1996, Todd Hundely's pursuit of the single season home run record for catchers was a ray of hope. Hundley's 41 home runs in 1996 was a single-season record for catchers at the time, and is still tied for the best single-season home run total for a Met.

Rick Reed : 1997 - May 22, 1998

OK, once again - the fact that former MLB scab Rick Reed is worthy of the Mets belt while a Yankees Hall-of-Fame hurler like Whitey Ford didn't come close to claiming a Yankees belt is pretty sad, but I was there in 1997, and nothing got me more excited about the 1997 Mets than Rick Reed.  The Mets finally broke their streak of 6 straight losing seasons and the pitching of Rick Reed was the biggest reason why.  The 1997 season laid the groundwork for strong Mets teams of the late 90's and early 2000s.  Reed followed up his strong 1997 season with an All-Star berth in 1998, but the belt changed hands in 1998 because a certain Hall-of-Fame catcher joined the team.

Mike Piazza : May 22, 1998 - June 21, 2004

From the time he joined the team in 1998 until 2002 ( his last great year ), Piazza had the greatest 5-year run of excellence a Mets every-day player has ever had.   His performance faded each year after that but he held on the belt for a while after that until the next great Met came on the scene.

David Wright : May 21, 2004 - 2015 

When all is said and done, David Wright is going to hold nearly every Mets career batting record.  That plus 2 gold glove awards makes him the clear choice as the all-time greatest every-day player for the Mets.  Here are his Fangraphs WAR numbers from 2004 - 2008.

2004  2.3 ( half a season )
2005  5.8
2006  4.7
2007  8.4  ( Won Gold Glove Award )
2008  7.0  ( Won Gold Glove Award  )

  For those who are not familiar with the scale for WAR, a WAR of 5 makes you an All Star, a WAR of 7 or greater makes you an MVP candidate and a WAR of 10 or greater makes you Mike Trout.

Wright's belt run almost ended with his subpar 2009 - 2011, but he was so good in 2012 and 2013, that I think it's fair to say that he deserved to keep the belt at least until the end of 2013.

Year   WAR
2012   7.5
2013   6.1 ( in just 112 games )

After that injuries kept him from contributing much in 2014 and 2015.  However, because Wright managed to return from spinal stenosis in late 2015 and helped contribute to the Mets run to the NL Championship, I think it's fair to let him keep the belt through 2015.

2016 : ???

However, I think it's clear now that Wright will never again return to his 2013 level.  He usually misses at least 2 games a week due to the spinal stenosis, and as of this writing he seems ready to head to the 15-day DL.  2004 - 2015 was a great run, but I think David Wright's run as the Mets belt-holder is over.

So, if David Wright is no longer the Mets belt-holder who is?

Well, to be honest, a month ago I was sure it was Michael Conforto.  Conforto was actually my inspiration for writing this post.   When Conforto got his 3rd hit in an April 30 game to raise his batting average to .370, I decided the the torch was being passed from Wright to Conforto, and came up with the idea of writing about Mets championship belts.

Sadly, over the last month, Conforto has struggled badly.  He's hit .177 in May and his average has dropped to .268.  Worse yet , he's only managed to get 4 hits ( all singles ) in 33 at-bats against lefties this year.  I still think Conforto is going to hit close to .300 with 20+ homers this year and will someday win a batting title, but I'm not convinced he's ready to take the belt this year ( thought he might be given the 2016 belt retroactively in 2020 or so if he turns into the the great player I hope he'll be ).

Right now, the Mets best player is Yoenis Cespedes, but it's hard to give him the belt knowing that he'll probably opt out of his contract and leave as a free agent after this season.  However, if he winds up hitting 45+ homers and 135+ RBI and leads the Mets to a World Series title, I'm giving the 2016 belt to Cespedes even if he leaves.

In any case, only time will tell, and it will be fun spending my time watching the Mets in the years to come.

Rich

I'm on a Boat

It's been more than a year, since I've done a long photo essay about a family vacation, but some vacations are more exciting than others.

The boat in question was the Norwegian Breakaway.  I'd been on a cruise ship once before, but that was back in 2000 before the kids were born.  Back in 2000, I specifically decided to go on the largest cruise ship in the world, which at the time was Royal Caribbean Voyager of the Seas.  This time, my requirements were a lot more simple; I just wanted to go a cruise I could take without having to fly to the boat's port of departure.  Back in 2000, flying to Florida was both cheap and hassle-free.  Today, not so much, so we decided to take the Norwegian Breakaway out of the port of New York.  While the Breakaway is nowhere near the biggest cruise ship in the world, it is bigger than the Voyager of the Sea, so I was still excited to be on the biggest ship I'd ever been on.  The ship's stats are listed in the photo below.

I took the picture of the Breakaway below when we were docked in the Bahamas.

We started our journey on March 27th.  Here are the boys before we entered the boarding terminal.

Our room wasn't ready as soon as we got on the boat, so we had some lunch and then joined a guided tour of the boat.  After that, we checked out our room.

I was a bit worried about how much space we were going to have in our cabin.  Unless you are prepared to spend a shitload of money, a cabin on a ship isn't going to be anywhere near as big as a regular hotel room.  Back in 2000, Ruth and I got what was considered to be a relatively upscale room for two ( it was a nice balcony room ) and it still felt pretty cramped.  There wasn't much walking space in our Voyager of the Seas room and the bathroom was tiny.  Our room in the Breakaway was only 218 square feet which doesn't seem like a lot ( The free throw lane college/high_school basketball court is 228  square feet - that doesn't include the extra 2 feet on each side of the lane on an NBA court ), but I was pleasantly surprised by how much space we had.

I was also thrilled to see that the bathroom was relatively HUGE ( I don't think out bathroom in our Manhattan apartment was much bigger than this ).

I couldn't believe we had a full-sized shower.   Back in 2000 our room had a tiny cylindrical stand-up shower that was only abut 30 inches in diameter.

After checking out the room we headed to the top deck to join a party celebrating the ship's departure.  It was there that Peter started to boogie.



After a little while the kids got bored with the party and wanted to head back to the room.  While Ruth and the boys headed back to the room, I stayed on the top deck to watch the ship pass under the Verrazano Bridge.



At some point in the evening, we took a picture with the captain.

He clearly doesn't have time to take photos with everybody, so if you blink, you miss your chance to get a picture.  However, Ruth was all over this.

She also found an opportunity later in the week to get a picture of the boys with the Cruise Director Dan Dan.

BTW, Cruise Director Dan Dan turned out to be a talented singer.  Here's a sample of what he can do.



The first entertainment we enjoyed on-baord the ship was a dueling pianos act called "Howl at the Moon".   Ruth took the picture below, soon after we arrived in the piano venue ( It's empty because we were the first people there. ).

The ship had all kinds of entertainment, but "Howl at the Moon" was probably my favorite entertainment on the boat.  After the Ruth and the boys got tired and headed back to the room, I sat and enjoyed the music for any hour or so more.  As I sat there in the dark listening  to great songs played by skilled performers, I felt more relaxed than I'd felt in a very long time.  All the pressures of life and work melted away and I just say back and enjoyed myself.  There were 4 or 5 "Howl at the Moon" shows during the cruise ( from about 10 PM to 2 AM, except on the fist night when they started at 8 PM ), and I spent at least hour at 4 of the shows.  I love my family and enjoyed all our time together on the cruise, but the "Howl at the Moon" show really gave me the "me" time I needed.

Now, that I'm a veteran of 2 cruises, I'd like to quickly compare my Norwegian Cruise Line experience with my Royal Caribbean experience ( with the understanding that the Royal Caribbean cruise was 16 years ago, and Royal Caribbean has certainly upped their game since then ).  The Norwegian Breakaway ( NB ) and Royal Caribbean Voyager of the Seas ( VOS ) are roughly the same size, so I think it's fair to compare them.

The biggest difference between the NB and the VOS was the dining experience.   The food was quite good on both ships, but I enjoyed the NB experience more.   On the VOS, you had an assigned dining time and needed to eat with the same people each night ( So each night, Ruth and I ate with 6 strangers on the VOS. )  The NB has a "freestyle dining" policy which gives you the option to eat whenever you want, wherever you want.  The NB had all sorts of restaurants you could go to.  It had a wonderful buffet ( far bigger than the VOS buffet ) and great sit-down restaurants with plenty of choices of the menu ( Each night  the complimentary sit-down restaurants would have a new menu with 6 different appetizers, 9 different entrees and 6 different desserts.  I'm pretty sure the VOS main dining room only gave you 2 entree options each night. ).

The one thing I will say about in the VOS's favor is that the main dining rooms on the VOS looked spectacular.   They were like the dining rooms Cal and Rose enjoyed in Titanic.   While I'm sure the dining rooms in the newer Royal Caribbean are even more spectacular, I much prefer Norwegian Cruise Line's "freesytle" dining experience.

The other big difference between the boats is that the VOS was far more impressive architecturally than the NB.  Despite being slightly smaller than the NB, the VOS felt much bigger.  The theater in the VOS felt bigger, the gym was bigger, the public spaces in the VOS were bigger, and the VOS had spectacular things like a large ice rink on the ship.  I can't prove this, but considering how big our NB cabin was, I think the designers of the NB may have sacrificed public space for cabin space.  That's actually not a bad thing if you are traveling with a family of 4, but people traveling as couples might enjoy the extra public space rather than the extra cabin space.

The public spaces on the VOS were so spacious, that sometimes you didn't feel like you were on a ship.  I can't deny that I was impressed by VOS public spaces like the "Royal Promenade" ( a large public space hundreds of feet long that feels like a fancy indoor mall ), but there is something to be said about feeling like you are on a boat.  The NB has all sorts of places that let you get a good view of the sea.

After we noticed the shuffleboard area, we had to give it a try.

It was too cold to take advantage of the pool when we left New York, but once we got a little more south we took advantage of the pools ...

... and the waterslides!

Too hot in the hot tub!!!!

Also, this ...

Not exactly Esther Williams, but I work for scale.

My favorite moment of the entire cruise happened during the "Rock of Ages" show.  Ruth and I weren't sure if the boys were going to like the show, but early in the show one of the characters made an extremely juvenile penis joke.  As I turned my head and watched the boys crack up, I knew they were going to have a fun night.

On the night we went to Rock of Ages, there was was a 7 PM show and a 9 PM show.  Because the performers had to get ready for the next show, they didn't come out for pictures after the 7 PM show we went to.  Ruth and I wanted to get some pictures with the performers, so we came back later ( when the boys were hanging out in the room ) to get some pictures after the 9 PM show.  Here's one of them ...

Needless the say, the scenery in some the Caribbean locations was spectacular.  Here are some example of the great views we had while docked in the Bahamas.

As you can see from the photo above, the views from the dining areas were great.  The photo above is from the buffet area, which was the boy's favorite place to eat.  They had soft serve ice-cream machines in the buffet and the boys must have had at least 20 cones each during the 7-day cruise ( Peter must have had at least 30 ).

However, as much as the boys loved the buffets, we also had had lots of nice meals in the fancier restaurants.  On most evenings, the whole family went to both the buffet and a fancy restaurant.  Peter would eat a lot in the buffet and a little in the fancy restaurant ( except for the two nights the fancy restaurant had PB&J's on the menu ) and Ruth and I would eat a little in the buffet and a lot more in fancy restaurant.  Michael, who's in the midst of his big growth spurt ate a lot in both the buffet and the fancy restaurants.  On two nights, the boys felt like hanging out in room after having an early buffet dinner, so Ruth and I had a couple of date nights.

The trip was also a good time to have a couple of family pictures taken.

If you look close, you'll notice that Michael is flipping the bird in at least two of the three photos above ( for all I know he's also doing it in the family photo where you can't see his hands ).  I don't really have a problem with it, because I love that nice natural smile he's flashing in those photos.  Michael's at that age where some kids forget how to smile naturally in photo.  However, he's got no trouble flashing a mischievous smile when he knows he is flipping the bird.

The Breakaway also had an automatic camera that emailed photos back to you.  This was the result.

The biggest highlight of the cruise may have been "walking the plank".  The Breakaway has a large ropes/obstacle course on the top deck.  The highlight of the course is the opportunity to "walk the plank" 18 decks up.  Michael, Peter, and I all tried it when we were docked in the Bahamas.  I tried it again on the way back New York because I forget to pull the string to take a photo of myself the first time I walked the plank ( That's why my photo has a different background ).

While all three of us walked the plank, Michael put us all to shame by doing what he did up there:



After watching this a few times I noticed that the kid in green behind Michael reacted by saying "Oh my God!" and putting his hand over his mouth.

The ropes course also had a zip-line type thing.  I've decided to just show a photo ( of Peter ) instead of Ruth's video of the "zip-lining", because none of us were moving particular fast in the video.

And thus ends the part of this blog post that has any narrative continuity.  For the rest of this post will just consists of random photos with random comment under them.

Every cruise ship needs to have lifeboats as well as lifeboat drills.  Both time I've been a on cruise ship they've made go to safety training with the other people assigned to same lifeboat as me, and both times I found myself thinking "Jeez, these are the people I might have to eat!"

At some point, when we were docked in the Bahamas, they lowered this lifeboat outside our window to do some safety tests.  Actually, I think ( hope ) they did these tests with all the lifeboats.

Speaking of lifeboats, considering that we were at sea on April 1st, I think the captain missed a great opportunity to pull one of the greatest April Fool's Day jokes of all time.

"May I have you attention please.  This is your captain speaking.  I regret to inform you that the ship is sinking, but don't worry, we have almost enough lifeboats for everyone.   .......   April Fools!!!!!"

Yeah, he'd get fired, but it would almost be worth it.  BTW, the quote above works better if you imagine the captain saying it in a Scandinavian accent.

It was fun watching the chandelier change colors.  ( Thanks you,  LEDs )

Michael showed the magician on board( Chip Romero ) his "pull my finger off" tricck.  The pro showed Michael the right way to do it.

The deep blue sea.
I already miss seeing this every day.

Rich

Bernie Fans for Hillary

Those of you who read my posts on social media know that I'm a big fan of Bernie Sanders and I'd love for him to be president.  However, as I'll make clear below, he has no realistic chance to win the Democratic nomination, and the time has come for all of Bernie Sanders supporters to start focusing on keeping the GOP out of the White House in November.  If you believe passionately in Bernie's vision for America, you've got to come to grips with the fact that President Hillary Clinton would keep the USA far closer to that vision than President Trump, President Cruz, or any Republican president.  Keep in mind that I'm not claiming Hillary would definitely bring us closer to Bernie's vision.  It's certainly possible that she might bring us a tiny bit closer to that vision, but if she follows the Clinton family playbook of changing positions based on the polls ( All liberals still wince when they think of Bill's "The era of big government is over" moment ) it's possible that she'll move the country a little bit to the right.  However, President Hillary Clinton moving the country a little bit to the right would be a lot better than a Republican president moving the country thousands of miles to the right.  Hillary may be a "lesser evil" in a presidential race against a Republican nominee, but she's a MUCH  MUCH lesser evil than a Republican president.

Now, I'm sure some of you Bernie fans are about to stop reading this and dismiss what I'm saying based on the belief that I'm a secret Hillary supporter.  Well, if you are somebody who feels this way, the first thing I'd like to emphasize is that if a message is true, the messenger shouldn't matter.  However, if you require proof that I'm not a Hillary supporter, I can provide plenty of proof.

Just last month, I wrote a blog post expressing my belief that Hillary is not an ideal candidate.  A year ago, I wrote a blog post blasting Hillary for her email scandal.  I'm also not a new passenger on the anti-Hillary train.  I made the anti-Hillary video below back on January 31, 2008.



I'll also note that I've been writing blog posts about income inequality long before some of you folks jumped on the Bernie bandwagon.

Some of you Bernie fans also might dismiss this post because you believe Bernie still has a chance to win the Democratic nomination.  While I wish I could believe that, I live in the world of reality, logic, and math.

Bernie fans on social media keep posting charts indicating that Hillary has only 1139 delegates and needs 2383 to win the nomination.  However, that's deceptive because that "2383" includes superdelegates while 1139 is the number of pledged ( non-super ) delegates that Hillary has won so far.  Hillary's real target is 2026 pledged delegates.  There are 4051 pledged delegates at stake in the Democratic presidential nomination race.  If Hillary wins the majority of those pledged delegates ( 2026 or more ), she's going to win the nomination.  Baring some unforeseen shocking Hillary scandal ( something more shocking than the email stuff ), there is no scenario in which the majority of superdelegates support Bernie if Hillary has won the majority of pledged delegates.  Bernie can't win the nomination unless he wins at least 2026 pledged delegates.  So, how likely is that?  Well, Bernie currently has won 825 pledged delegates, and needs to win 1201 of the remaining 2087 pledged delegates to get to 2026.  1201/2087 is 57.5%.  So, because the rest of the pledged delegates are allocated proportionally, Bernie is going to need to win roughly 57.5% of primary votes the rest of the way.  This is something to keep in mind when watching primary results going forward.  If Bernie wins the next 6 states in a row by margins of 55%, he'll actually be getting further from the nomination rather than closer to it.  With, that in mind, Bernie chances are pretty much nil.  Considering how Bernie has done so far, it's hard to believe he's going to start winning  states by 57.5% or more.  He might win a few states by more than 57.5%, and he might win the the majority of delegates the rest of the way, but nothing that's happened so far in this nomination contest suggests he can win anywhere close to 57.5% of the delegates the rest of the way.  Remember, that he only won 52.8% of the delegates in his big win in Michigan ( 67/127 ) and that's a state full of union members who are still angry at the Clintons for NAFTA.  Bernie also lost liberal Massachusetts, which should have been an ideal state for the more liberal candidate in the race.  It would be nice if Bernie could catch Hillary, but the delegate math tells us that it isn't going to happen. *

* BTW, I wrote this on March 19, 2016.  If you are reading  this on the morning of March 23rd or later, the delegate math will be a little bit difference.  Assuming you reading this at any time between now and the Democratic convention, you can calculate the percentage of remaining pledged delegates Bernie needs to win with the following formula.
B = pledged delegates won by Bernie.
H = pledged delegates won by Hillary.
P = percentage of remaining pledged delegates Bernie needs to win the win the nomination.

P = 100 x ( 2026 - B ) / ( 4051 - ( B + H ) )

I also want to make it clear that I'm not asking any Bernie fans to abandon their principals or stop supporting Bernie.  If Bernie decides to keep running all the way until the convention, I think Bernie fans should keep supporting him the entire way.  I certainly intend to vote for Bernie when the primary happens in my state.  Bernie's running a positive campaign, and his presence in the campaign has been good for the Democratic party.  He's pushed Hillary to the left on the issues and each competitive Democratic primary leads to more registered Democratic voters.

However, what I am asking Bernie supporters to do is vote for Hillary in November in the extremely likely event that Hillary wins the Democratic nomination.  I understand that Bernie fans might find this distasteful ( I plan to hold by nose while casting my vote for Hillary in November ), but the future of our country depends on this.  Once again, the "Bernie or Bust" people may not like the idea of voting for "a lesser evil" in November, but Hillary is a much lesser evil than the GOP.

I understand that Hillary is a lying sleazy politician.  I understand that her positions are all over the map depending on which way the political winds are blowing.  I understand that she cares more about being president than actually helping people.

However, even though she is all over the map, it's a on a part of the map which is far more palatable than the part the Republicans occupy.  If you think of the American political landscape like a map of the USA, the Democrats are all within 200 miles on of the west coast while the Republicans are all within 200 miles of the east coast.  In this analogy, there's nobody at all in the vast expanse between the two coasts.  A "moderate" is as extinct these days a dinosaur.  I know Bernie fans would greatly prefer a true liberal like Bernie with his toes dipped in the Pacific, but if Hillary is 200 miles from the west coast that's still more than 2000 miles away any Republican.

My point is that while Hillary may not be a reliably liberal Democrat, she's still a Democrat, and a liberal can be confident that President Hillary Clinton's policies will fall within the part of the political spectrum occupied by Democrats - a part of the spectrum that has no overlap with Republicans

If you' d like to see this concept expressed with a graphic, here's a video I made about this concept back in 2008.  Everything I said in the video below is still true today, except that the Democrats and the Republicans are even further apart today than they were 8 years ago.



It's not hyperbole to say that the November presidential election could affect the lives of both our kids and grandkids.  The next president might nominate Supreme Court justices who will serve for 30 or more years.  This is not the year to throw your vote away, or not vote all all.

If the "Bernie of Bust" people can't appreciate the huge different between Hillary Clinton or any Republican, I'm not sure if anything I've said is going to make any difference.  However, I'm going to close this post by making one final plea to Bernie supporters:

Bernie Sanders is a good and smart man who understands what a Republican presidency would mean for America.  After Hillary wins the nomination, Bernie is going throw his support behind Hillary and ask his supporters to vote for her.

Please listen to him.

Rich

P.S. If you care about keeping the GOP out of the White House, please share this post with any Bernie Sanders supporters you know.

Barbara Boxer for President

Yeah, I know it's too late and there's a 99% chance Hillary will be the Democratic nominee for president ( Bernie has about a 1% chance now after those Nevada and South Carolina results ), but hear me out; I've got a point to make.

Now that Donald Trump is ( remarkably ) the favorite to win the GOP nomination, I find myself worrying that the Democratic process to pick a nominee ( the process by which they pre-ordained Hillary as the nominee, and threw all their resources behind her ) is going to pick the wrong kind of candidate to run against Trump.  However, before we discuss the wrong kind of democratic candidate to run against Trump, let's discuss the right of candidate to run against Trump.

The best kind of candidate to beat Trump is actually no candidate.  If you polled all Americans on whether or not they wanted Donald Trump to be president, "No" would win in a landslide.  However, the opponent matters a lot here.  If Donald Trump was running for president against David Duke, Trump would win in a landslide, and all of Trumps fiercest liberal critics would line up early in the morning on Election Day to vote for Trump.

No, the Democrats can't run "nobody" for president, but they would have been a lot better off running a relatively anonymous politician, who isn't disliked by a large portion of the country.  Let's make no bones about it, Hillary is disliked, and not just by conservatives who always vote for the GOP anyway.  Just go to facebook and see what Bernie Sanders supporters have to say, and consider that a certain percentage of them will stay home in November if Bernie is not on the ballot.  Also consider all the undecided moderates who are not big fans of Hillary.  Trump's certainly unpopular, but so is Hillary.  She's a little bit less hated than The Donald, but the margin between Trump's unfavorable ratings and Hillary's unfavorable ratings isn't enough to allay my fears about November.

This is where Barbara Boxer comes in ( or would come in, if it wasn't too late, which it is ).  Barbara Boxer has been serving in the Senate for more than 23 years, and I really only know two things about her.

1) She was one of the two women elected to the U.S. Senate from California in 1992.
2) She's not Dianne Feinstein.

I don't say this to diminish Barbara Boxer's career.  I'm sure she's done a lot of fine work in the Senate since January 1993, but unlike some people ( I'm looking at you Chuck Schumer ) she's not on TV every 5 minutes talking about it.  My point is that if a person like me ( who writes political blog posts for fun ) can't tell you much about Barbara Boxer, she hasn't been in the spotlight too much.

And for a Trump-vs-DEM match-up in November, having somebody who is not too famous on the "DEM" side of that match-up is actually a good thing.

Anyway, it's too late to do anything now, but it's something that might be fun thinking about ( in a masochistic way ) as you pull your hair out worrying about Hillary's unfavorable ratings over the next 8+ months.

Rich

Things I Used to Believe

When I was a child, I believed the following things ...

Age 4: Mommies stayed home and Daddies went to work.
Age 4: All doctors were men and all nurses were women.  Women couldn't be doctors.
Age 7: That it would be best if somebody other than Bella Abzug won the race for New York mayor, because running a government was a man's job.

Age 4: It was cool when cowboys shot Indians.
Age 4: The only "Indians" in the world were the people who wore feather headdresses in the Americas.
Age 4: All "Indians" who has not yet been shot by cowboys still wore the feather headdresses ( just like the crying "Indian" in that pollution commercial ).

Age 4: It was OK to start my writing career by writing a war story ( which I titled "Men at War" ) about American soldiers killing Japanese soldiers with authentic Japanese names like "Private Choo Choo" and "Private Chee Chee."
( If I could find this story, I'd post a picture of it, but alas, I think it has been lost to the ages.  To be fair, this probably wasn't an example of my childhood racism.  I think I had learned about World War II, and had decided to write a story about the USA fighting Japan.  Yeah, the names I choose for the Japanese guys were really questionable, but I probably did not know any real Japanese names.  Anyway, what 4-year old white kid didn't have fantasies about killing Asian people? )

Age 5: The "Ancient Chinese Secret" Calgon commercial was in no way racist.
Age 5: The crows in Dumbo were in no way racist.
Age 6: The depiction of Buckwheat in the The Little Rascals was in no way racist.
Age 8: "The Mandarin" character from Iron Man comics/cartoons was in no way racist.
Age 10: The "Ming the Merciless" character played by Max von Sydow in the Flash Gordon movie was in no way racist.

Age 13: Michael Jackson and Boy George were both straight.  I though they were cool, so I didn't want them to be gay.  I also thought Paul Lynde and Liberace were straight, because I always wanted to think the best of people.  I didn't want to think that anyone was gay, because being gay was bad.  Being gay was very bad.

Age 13: It made perfect sense for the USA to commit resources to building a space defense system to shoot down Soviet Nuclear weapons.
Age 14: Ronald Reagan was the most awesome president ever.

Yeah, so the child version of me was pretty much a future Tea Party member in the making and would have loved a lot of what Donald Trump has been saying.  Of course, the world has changed a lot since I was a kid, and more importantly, I've changed.

My point here is that I think a lot of the people who love Trump really haven't grown up.  A lot of us grew up a culture full or sexism, racism, and homophobia, but most of us grow up, learn about the world, and realize that our childhood views were idiotic.  These people didn't ...

Rich

Liberals for Trump

OK, so before you think I've lost my mind, I do not want Donald Trump to be president.  However, I do want him to win the Republican nomination.

I'm sure some of you can guess the reason why.  I believe that Trump is the least electable of the GOP candidates competing for the nomination.  To put in terms Trump would understand ...
If Trump is the GOP nominee, the Democratic victory will be HUGE in November.
Trump will be a DISASTER for the Republican party.

Of course, not all liberals feel that way.  Lots of liberals are disgusted by Trump and wish he'd just go away ( I'm actually disgusted by Trump too, but I want him to stick around long enough to lay waste to the Republican party ).  Some of these liberals are friends of mine.  I discussed the issue of Trump's candidacy with two of these friends in person few weeks and on facebook about a week ago.  I was thinking of sending them a facebook response to make the case that all liberals should be rooting for Trump to be the GOP nominee, but I decided the write a blog post instead.

Let me start by addressing one of the primary concerns expressed by one of my friends.  This friend wrote ...

"Trump's candidacy is creating and environment that encourages not only hate speech, but outright hate crimes, and real people are getting hurt."

I can't disagree that Trump's candidacy creates an environment more conducive to hate speech and hate crimes, but I believe this negative effect is ....
1) far smaller than most people think it is.
2) several orders of magnitude smaller than the negative effect a Republican presidency would have.

Every person is influenced by their environment, and the media is part of that environment, so I'd never try to argue that the garbage Trump spews doesn't have any effect on people.  However, I think we give Trump far too much "credit" when we claim that he's going to make violent racist people act significantly more violent and racist.

Conservatives have been claiming for years that violent videos games ( "You can't blame the guns for the deaths of all those kids Johnny killed at his school.  This is all the fault of that Grand Theft Auto video game he was playing." ) make kids more violent and that popular music corrupts our youth ( be it Elvis and his suggestive hips, "satanic" heavy metal, or rap songs like "Fuck the Police" and "Cop Killer". ).

Liberals have correctly pointed out that conservatives are full a crap when it come to their views about video games and music.  You can never say with certainly that the media has zero influence, but ...
1) Harris and Klebold probably would have done something terrible at Columbine even if video games had never been invented.
2) The sexual revolution of the 60s happens with or without Elvis's suggestive hips.
3) Most cop killers never listened to "Cop Killer" and 99.9999% of people who listen to "Cop Killer"  will never kill a cop.

Just as you can argue that video games and music are not responsible for the level of violence in our society, you can argue that Trump's rhetoric will not have a significant influence on hate crimes.  Does he have some influence?  Yes.  Is it a large influence?  No.  The kind of person who would commit a hate crime was conditioned to be a hateful violent bigot long before Trump ever threw his hat in the ring.  Dylan Roof didn't need a Trump to inspire him; a legacy of institutional racism in the South was enough inspiration.

( Just in case somebody wants to make the ridiculous argument that Dylan Roof was inspired by Trump, I do acknowledge that the Charleston Church Massacre did happen one day after Trump announced his candidacy.  However, Trump's candidacy was considered to be a joke rather than a real cultural force after the first day, and even if Roof happened to notice a news story about Trump's candidacy when he took a break from all the racists web sites he was spending time on, there is no way Trump's racists comments about Mexican immigrants had even one millionth of the effect on Roof as that the racist web sites did. )

OK, but let's assume for a moment that Trump's influence will be much greater than I'm assuming it will be.  Let's assume there is a significant  increase in hate crimes, and a few people even die as a result of those crimes.

That would be tragic, but nowhere near as tragic as a Republican presidency.  If the GOP takes control of the White House in 2017, a very large number of people will be hurt and lot more than a few people will die.  You might think I'm being sensationalist, but just look at what happened the last time a Republican was president,  Thousands of American soldiers died in a Middle East quagmire we never should have entered and many more innocent people in Iraq and Afghanistan were killed as collateral damage ( To be fair, Democrats have pulled the USA into pointless costly wars in the past ( Vietnam ), but if you listen to what Republican candidates have to say about Iran, Syria, and ISIS, you can't help but conclude that the USA is far more likely to send troops to the Middle East if a Republican becomes president in 2017 than if a Democrat becomes president ).

Even if a victorious Republican presidential candidate avoids military misadventures while in office, I can still think of several other dangerous effects of a Republican presidency.

1) A Supreme Court with 2 to 4 more GOP-appointed conservatives will make decisions that will severely affect the health of women across the nation.  If they ever manage to overturn Roe v. Wade, some women will most certainly die.  It should also be noted that a GOP president will sign any anti-Planned Parenthood bill the GOP-controlled Congress wants to pass.

2) A conservative enough Supreme Court could potentially roll back some of the recent Marriage Equality decisions.  At the very least, a more conservative Supreme Court will rule in favor of all "religious liberty" claims that will make it easier for businesses and employers to discriminate against LGBT people.  A GOP-stacked Supreme Court could legitimize all sorts of discrimination against both LGBT people and women for decades.  I think those effects will be far more damaging that any Donald Trump inspired hate crimes over the next 9 months.

3) A Republican president could help facilitate the gutting of both the FDA and the EPA.  This will lead to a huge number of additional deaths from cancer as well as the occasional tragedy ( like Flint ) due to lax regulations.

4) A Republican president could sign several policies into law which would be disastrous for the poor.   Foods stamps could be cut, welfare could be cut, unemployment benefits could be cut, family leave policies that help new parents could be changed, the minimum wage would be kept ridiculously low, the National School Lunch Program could lose funding ( Remember that the Reagan administration tried to cut school lunch expenses by classifying condiments like relish as a vegetable serving. ).   I'm not saying a Republican president will do all these things.  Congress has a big say in this of course, and even a GOP-controlled Congress would have trouble getting a filibuster-proof super-majority to do the most radical stuff.   However, there is no denying that a Republican President is far more likely to implement policies that will hurt the poor than a Democratic president.  Let's face it, Republicans are more more likely than Democrats to ignore poverty, and ignoring poverty while poor children go hungry and crime runs rampart in communities without hope will hurt poor minority communities far more than than any hate crimes Trump supporters could dream up.

5) Oh, and I almost forgot about Obamacare.  The anti-Obamacare policies of a Republican president could make millions of people lose their health care.  This may not be as dramatic as a Trump-inspired hate crime, but lack of healthcare will kill far more people than any Trump inspired hate.

So, with all that in mind, I don't know why a liberal would rather face the risk of a GOP presidency rather than the risk of Trump-inspired hate crimes unless they believe ...

1) Trump has zero chance of actually winning the GOP nomination and his attacks the other GOP contenders will not do lasting damage to them.

2) there's nearly a 100% chance Hillary or Bernie will win in November regardless of the who the GOP nominee is.

3) Donald Trump has just as good a chance of winning in November as all the other GOP candidates who might win the nomination.

If any of the 3 statements were actually true, I'd want Trump to go away immediately, just like lots of other liberals do.  However, none of the statements above are remotely true.  The poll numbers cited in this recent article show both #2 and #3 above are false.  The polls suggest that Hillary or Bernie would have a tight race against either Rubio or Cruz, but would easily defeat Trump.

Even if you think the GOP establishment will never let Trump win the GOP nomination, his continued presence in the GOP race will certainly damage the other GOP candidates.  We already have proof that he can destroy a viable GOP presidential contender.  Back in mid-2015, Bush was polling even with Hillary in some national polls, and now he's got no chance be on the ballot in November even if Trump disappeared off the face of the Earth tomorrow.  Every time Trump attacks Rubio or Cruz, he helps the Democratic party.  I want Trump going after those guys for as long as possible, even if Trump doesn't wind up being the eventual GOP nominee.

I'll admit that I don't think Trump will be the GOP nominee, but I certainly want him to be, and I'll be rooting for him to do well in Iowa on Monday.

I'll close this post by considered one last argument against my position on Trump.  I know that some readers must be thinking "Rich, be careful what you wish for.  If Trump wins the GOP nomination and the presidency, you're going to feel really stupid about rooting for Trump in the GOP primaries."

Well, while I'll admit that there is a chance that GOP nominee Trump could be become President Trump ( at most a 5% chance ) , I don't think the idea of President Trump is significantly more scary than President Any_other_Republican.  Both President Trump and President Any_other_Repblican will rubber-stamp any bills approved by the GOP-controlled Congress and will appoint several conservative justices to the Supreme Court.  The only significant difference between President Trump and President Any_other_Republican would be the rhetoric, and President Trump would surely tone down his rhetoric to increase his chances of winning a general election in 2020.  So President Trump doesn't scare me much more than President Any_other_Republican, but candidate Any_other_Republican scares me much more that candidate Trump, because candidate Any_other_Republcan has a good chance ( roughly 50% ) of winning in November while candidate Trump does not.  I know rooting for Trump in any kind of election seems to be in violation of liberal principles, but the practical reality is that rooting against Trump in the GOP primary is rooting for Marco Rubio's presidential prospects to improve.  President Rubio would be a HUGE DISASTER, so I'll be one of Trumps biggest fans in the GOP race.

Rich

P.S. I finished writing this post very late on Saturday, January 29th, but didn't have time to proofread it before I went to bed.    I was out with my family until about 2:30 PM on on Sunday, so I didn't get a chance to revisit this blog post until Sunday afternoon.  In the interim, I started to imagine how some some of my liberal friends might respond to this post.  I feared that some of them might consider my position about Trump and hate crimes to be heartless and immoral.  While I made it clear that I found it unlikely that anyone would die as a result of Trump's rhetoric, I also coldly asserted that I thought the deaths of those who might be killed in Trump-inspired hate crimes would be more than made up for by the people who would be saved down the road by keeping a Republican out of the White House.  It occurred to me that my position is similar to the position most people take with presented with the classic "Trolley Problem" ethical dilemma.  Most people, when given a choice to pull a switch that will send a train down a track to hit one person will gladly do so when the alternative is to let the train continue on its current path and hit 5 people.  Of course, an argument could be made that my position regarding Trump-insprired hate crimes is more akin to the "fat man" variant of the "Trolley Problem" ( in which you have the option to push a fat man off a bridge and into the path of the train to save five people from being hit by the train ).  If you feel that way about my position, I won't hesitate to agree with you.  When it comes to politics, I'd be willing to push that fat man off the bridge every time.