The Gambler

From the long list of possible vices, gambling was never going to be my vice of choice. 

Oh, I'm still capable of yelling 'wanna bet?' when some factoid is in question - and I'm 100% sure I'm right. Of course, other than the small smug satisfaction of winning the bet, nothing material ever materializes. But other than buying an occasional lottery ticket, betting has no appeal to me whatsoever.

I've been to casinos, but my limit was always a roll of quarters for the slots - or whatever the electronic equivalent is these days. But once that ten bucks is exhausted, I'm out. In my twenties, I went a couple of times to the track (Narragansett, Suffolk Downs) with friends, where I'd make a couple of two-dollar bets on some nag, based on whether I liked its name or the jockey's colors. 

But gambling to me is one big meh, and I'm about as likely to get sucked into playing one of those betting apps as I am to go skydiving. Is there a probability that's less than zero?

Gambling, however - whether micro wagers on Fan Duel or other sports betting apps, or in the 'when's the next forest fire' prediction makets - has become a huge industry. And what it's doing in the process of growing the businesses, the industry, is getting a whole lot of folks ensnared in gambling. I.e., becoming addicted. And their lives can be pretty much ruined when they go into big, hideous debt. 

One ruinee is a fellow named Terry Thompson, whose road to financial perdition was via FanDuel. 

He began innocently enough, betting on the Philadelphia Eagles to win, but soon found himself "placing microbets, which are in-game wagers on something as small as whether the next play would be a pass or run."

Soon enough, he had wagered $18.5 million on the app. This figure does not, of course, represent total losses. Thompson was making his bets, rewagering his winnings, and (mostly) covering his losses. While FanDuel was taking their cut. 

Meanwhile, having been identified as a Big Spender, Thompson started getting comped. Tickets to Eagles, Flyers, and Sixers games. A couple of fully paid for trips to the Supoer Bowl with perks like invites to swank parties and pregame field access. 

Thompson was assigned a FanDuel relationship manager, Bryttanni Morgan, his VIP host for events like the Super Bowl. She also stayed in contact with Thompson via text, pretending to be his friend - with convos about family, etc. - while always turning the encounter around to urging Thompson to place more bets. 

But the house always wins, and the losses were getting steeper. 

Thompson was losing big time, mortgaging his home. Mortgaging it again. Selling share in a business he ran. He was desperate for the funds to keep fueling his addiction.

Then, one afternoon [in November 2024], he flicked open his phone and received a FanDuel reward that momentarily distracted him from his debts: a personalized video message from Philadelphia Phillies superstar. (Source: Philadelphia Inquirer)

Bryce Harper is a very big deal. He's a future Hall of Famer, playing his way through a $300M plus multi-year contract that nets him about $25M a year. He has a ton of endorsements as well. But there's never enough money, and if you can earn some extra coin by making a bunch of personalized video calls for your fans while you're sitting around with nothing to do but Scrooge McDuck count your money, why not add to the pile o' lucre?

So Harper recorded a video that Morgan sent Thompson that name checks Thompson's son, thanks Thompson for his support (support for Harpef? for FanDuel?), and wishes him a Happy Thanksgiving. 

The video was made through Cameo, the outfit that sells celebrity greetings. You can get an Englebert Humperdinck vid for $345. (Didn't know he was still alive. He's 90, and will be performing in the Boston area in December. Who knew?)

Red Sox great (and Hall of Famer) will give you a shout out for $600. And the price for Kevin O'Leary, Shark Tank ahole supreme, starts at $1,500. 

So Harper wasn't doing directly promotional work for FanDuel. It was via Cameo. But:

Harper mentions that he was reaching out at the request of Thompson’s VIP manager, “your host Bryttanni at FanDuel.” 

So he kinda shoulda known that Thompson was a pretty big gambler to have a FanDuel "host" looking out for him.

You'd think so, no?

Anyway, Thompson ended up owing over a million bucks and spending time in "a psychiatric facility to undergo treatment for gambling addiction."

He's suing FanDuel and Morgan, and I hope he wins big (and that the winnings go into a trust that someone else manages for him). Sure, there's such a thing as free will, but these rotters knowingly prey on those who've become addicted to gambling. 

As for Harper, he's not named in the suit, but he's getting some heat for working with a betting outfit. He's blah-blah-ing about not doing anything directly with FanDuel, but since his message mentions the company, it's not as if he should be "shocked, shocked that gambling is going on in here," as Inspector Renault famously says in Casablanca, while accepting a bag of loot from the croupier at Rick's. 

Oh, FFS. Nothing he did was illegal, but we're sure on the border between ethical and unethical here, no?

I can understand the lure of doing Cameo videos. It's almost free money. And I looked on the site, and a lot of the videos are offered for lesser lights than Bryce Harper. Plenty of them are for "celebrities" I never heard of. And I can understand why fans of celebrities would get a kick out of receiving a "personal" video, even if they know it's hooey.

But especially for the rich folks making these vids, why don't they do it through a charity? Let the Make a Wish Foundation, Saint Jude's Hospital, Habitat for Humanity make some money peddling these videos. They need the money more than Bryce Harper does. 

Sheesh.

Meanwhile, if it's okay wish best of luck to a gambler, best of luck to Terry Thompson. 

As for Bryce Harper, why not pay closer attention to what you're doing in your free time to make even more money than you'll ever possibility need.

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Image Source: Fantasy Costumes

Take a nice big gulp, Zuck.

The other day, I was at my volunteer job - basically, hanging out in the expressive therapy room in a large day shelter - and we started kicking around ideas for the title one of the art works. Our brainstorm was running on empty, when a fellow volunteer - a retired businessman who's roughly my age - decided to ask ChatGPT for a suggestion.

I kiddingly yelled at him - we've worked together for years, and I really like this guy - for using AI, but damned if AI didn't come up with a pretty good name for the picture.

Still, I stand by my opposition to using AI so cavalierly. 

There are times and places for AI, but this - IMHO - isn't one of them. I keep trying to turn AI search off, but every time I think I've figured it out, Google manages to sneak it in. (It's been easier to turn of text predictions and Microsoft's odious CoPilot.)

There are a number of reasons for my (mostly) fear and (mostly) loathing of AI. Promoting teen suicides. Providing wrong information - oops, that mushroom actually is poisonous. Job elimination, often just because some C-suite is enamored of the promise of saving big bucks by getting rid of humans - damn the short term and long term implications. And, of course, the environmental depredation that these AI data centers are causing. 

AI uses too damned much energy. It sucks up water resources, and the wastewater is often a pollutant. The noise pollution is driving folks with the misfortune to live close to one of these monster AI data centers nuts. 

And to what end? So a bunch of amoral tech bros can become even more billionaire-y? So the Family Trump can keep up with their cyber-grifting?

Given the havoc AI data centers are wreaking, I really shouldn't be paying any attention to what happened when a big ol' AI data center was being built in Wyoming. Which is really not causing mega problems.

And why not Wyoming as a great location for data centers, one might well ask? It's a big state with virtually no people. So what if those data centers hum all night? And Wyoming has wind. And natural gas. And oil. So they can probably power up without raising the electric bills of the 600K or so cowpokes who live in the state. (The relative handful of tech bros and Hollywood types who live in the Jackson Hole enclave can afford to pay more, so I won't waste any of my personal, finite supply of energy worrying about them.)

But what captured my eye about this Wyoming data center is that it belongs to Meta, a company that happens to be owned by one of the tech-bro-iest of 'em all, Mark Zuckerberg. 

Meta is building a mega data center in Cheyenne, which is slated to become operative in 2027:

...but its contractor has come under fire after city officials traced wastewater containing a rare bacterium to the project.

By bacteria standards, Cupriavidus gilardii (scary name aside) isn't all that awful, but:

While harmless to most healthy people, it can cause severe pneumonia, bloodstream and lung infections, and, in rare cases, death among people with weakened immune systems.

Officials stressed that it did not contaminate the city's drinking water, but said it disrupted the municipal reclaimed water system and required months of cleanup. (Source: Daily Mail)

And Meta has now permanently lost permission "to discharge wastewater from its fill-and-flush operations into Cheyenne's treatment system, where the water is recycled and later used to irrigate parks and other public spaces."

This is by no means the worst thing that one of these data centers is going to be responsible for. Some towns are experiencing low water pressure; sediment build up the gives residents brown water - just what you want to brush your teeth and wash your hair with, let alone bathe your baby; a whining, skull-piercing noise running 24/7. (Some of the sound levels aren't just annoying, they're harmful to hearing.) Oh, and the home values for those living in a data center neighborhood are declining. Which might be offset if data centers produced high paying jobs for folks living in the hood. But once construction is finished, data centers don't require a lot of employees to keep the centers humming. (And some of their jobs are going to - you guessed it - AI.)

Not that the masters of the universe clamoring for these data centers give a damn. Frankly, my dear, they don't. 

But I sure would like to see Mark Zuckerberg and his pals spend a night in humming distance of one of their data centers. And take a nice big gulp of water from the local taps whille they're at it.

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Image Source: Red Bubble

Diamonds (and rubies and emeralds) are a president's best friend?

You don't need me to tell you that the Grifter-in-Chief has vastly increased his wealth during Round Two of an administration that will live in infamy. Or is it ignominy? The latest in griftorama: charging $100K for a service through which subscribers get early releases of Trump's Truth Social market-moving pronouncements, so they'll have a jump on Wall Street (betting on actual instruments) and the prediction markets (betting on nothing). 

I'm old enough to recall the the radio payola scandal, in which record labels bribed dj's to play their records. How. Quaint.

And you don't need me to tell you that the gilt-obsessed (but apparently guilt-feelings-free) Decorator-in-Chief has the design sensibility of Liberace, without Liberace's sense of humor. The word tawdry doesn't do Trump's taste justice. (I'd say that his taste is all in his mouth, but given his daily ingestion of fast food and Diet Coke, I don't think he has much taste there, either.)

The gift to Trump from the Antwerp World Diamond Center may not be the most valuable that Trump has received. It's a ring worth an estimated $25k-35k, which is probably about what Trump spends per month on fast food and Diet Coke. 

But in terms of tackiness, it's gotta be right up there. 

Dozens of diamonds spell out two giant letter T's next to the Stars and Stripes and "1776" and "2026." Dozens more frame the numbers 45 and 47 in the shape of Superman's logo. A diamond-winged eagle carries a ruby shield and clutches an olive branch of emeralds, below a radiant "250" and atop the phrase "250 YEARS USA" etched in 18-karat gold.

All told, 321 diamonds, 56 sapphires, 13 emeralds and six rubies encrust the watch-sized gold ring presented this week to Bill White, the U.S. ambassador to Belgium, to give to U.S. President Donald Trump. (Source: PBS)

Atypically, this was something of a tat for tit gift, a quo pro quid reversal, in that Trump had already removed tariffs on diamond imports before the diamond merchants sent him this bauble in thanks. Most of the bribes gifts bestowed on Trump yield a benefit after the fact. Donate a couple of million to some Trumpian effort - his inauguration, the building of the new ballroom - and get a big little something in return. Pave the way for a deal. Get awarded a major contract.

From a corporation's point of view, the return is beyond belief. You'd be crazy not to pay to play.

The ring was given to Ambassador Bill White at some sort of 250th celebration/fundraising event, during which over $5.5 million was collected from mega (MAGA?) US corporate sponsors like Lockheed Martin, Intel, Google, and Meta. And smaller Euro organization like chocolatiers Leonidas and Ferrero, and the Antwerp diamond-eers. 

After the ring was presented on a star-spangled stage in Brussels, musician Alexis Wilkins, the girlfriend of FBI Director Kash Patel, sang the U.S. national anthem to more than 8,000 people drinking Budweiser and bourbon from Tennessee and Kentucky.

That must have been some treat. I've never had a boilermaker - a glass of beer combined with a shot of whisky - but if I'd had to be at this "star-spangled" event, I might have had to down a few.  

Presidents can, in fact, accept personal gifts from "friends" both domestic and foreign, and can decide for themselves whether the gift is personal or to the nation. (I can just imagine the current decision-making process.) An exception is foreign governments, whose gifts require congressional assent - as if that Constitutional nicety is still operative. Presidents can keep a gift if they reimburse the Treasury for the full value of it. As if...(As in the Qatari jet...)

Hope Trump enjoys his new ring. (/s)

What a colossal embarrasment this regime is.

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Image Source: PBS

And now, on the election fraud front...

Anne Manning Martin and Michael Walsh were both hoping to appear on the ballot in the upcoming Massachusetts primary, Martin as a candidate for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor, Walsh for the Republican nomination for attorney general. 

Unfortunately, there were a number of signatures on their nominating papers that weren't quite legit. Names appeared to be "written by the same person" and were listed on the papers for both candidates in "identical order." 

Moreover, both candidates also had nomination papers that listed signatures in the order they appeared in a voter database used by the Massachusetts Republican Party to help candidates find supporters. (Source: Boston Globe)

An expert - himself a signature gatherer - determined that:

...the mathematical likelihood of this occurring is zero and that these signatures are likely fraudulent.

Oh. 

When the Globe reached out to some of those whose signatures were falsely included on the nomination papers, one voter - who no longer lives in Massachusetts - said, "'I don't trust anybody anymore. It stinks.'" Another non-signer said "'I didn't write that. I don't even vote.'"

As a result of the chicanery, Manning Martin (who was campaigning as the de facto running mate of Mike Minogue who is odds-on likely to win the Republican gubernatorial primary come electionday on September 1) was tossed off the ballot. Due to a complaint-filing technicality, Walsh is still on.   

I can't really blame the candidates here, other than for procedural carelessness in not having someone on their team take a close look - or any look - at the signatures on the nominations petitions they submitted to appear on the ballot. And not notice that an awful lot of folks had the same signature.

Now, in a state where a lot of us olds went to parochial school back in the day, it is not entirely outside the realm of possibility that a lot of John Hancocks would show up, not with John Hancock's flowing script, but with drilled-in, never-forgotten Palmer Penmanship.

And you can't blame the candidates for hiring a signature gathering outfit to collect names for them. Yes, the magic number of 10,000 signatures can be gotten via grass roots efforts, but that's a big number, especially for a Republican in Massachusetts, where D's out number R's three-to-one. (Independents, which are the majority of Massachusetts voters, can sign nomination papers for candidates in either party. Thank you, Secretary of State Bill Galvin for your very informative web site.)

But some signature gatherer Joe Bronske, who "was paid thousands of dollars by Walsh and Manning Martin’s campaigns to collect signatures on their behalf, according to state records," turned out to be. 

When confronted, Bronske took the Fifth Amendment, as is done.

Bronske, a Republican operative who has served on the Board of (Election) Registrars in his town, of all things, has also been implicated in collecting bogus signatures for Republican secretary of state wannabe Anne Brensley. Many of her signatures were tossed, and she ended up not getting enough to appear on the ballot. She's now running as a write-in candidate.

Bronske's pitch to Brensley's campaign was:

For your campaign’s 10,000-signature requirement, I can:

• Map and target registered voters to ensure every collected signature is eligible and verifiable
• Recruit, train, and coordinate circulators across required districts
• Verify signatures against official voter registration databases
• Conduct internal audits to identify duplicates, errors, or incomplete entries before filing
• Coordinate filing with local election officials and the Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth
• Prepare documentation and records to defend against potential challenges by focusing only on certified voters and using a rigorous accuracy-first process, the campaign maximizes valid signatures while avoiding wasted effort or risk of disqualification. (Source: New Bedford Guide)

Which all would have been fine and dandy if Bronske had actually delivered on his proposal, which he apparently did not.

I'm quite sure that it's not easy to collect 10,000 signatures. That's a lot of spending a lot of Saturdays standing outside the Market Basket trying to get harried shoppers to stop and sign papers. People are in a rush. People are suspicious, they're wary of fraud. People don't want to be bothered.

Everytime I'm asked, I sign papers for candidates for office. It should come as no surprise that I'm a registered D, but frankly I'd be mostly okay with signing for an R, if allowed. (Or at least I would have been back in the day when Massachusetts R's were mostly palatable to this D's sensiblities.)

In any case, I feel bad for these candidates who trusted (and paid) Bronske to find the signatures they needed to get on the ballot.

I suspect that he'll be out of the signature-gathering biz. Brensley for one was considering legal action against him. There may be civil penalties for Bronske. And there's been some tiny mention of jail time. 

 What a nasty scammer he turned out to be. We really don't need any more a-holes underminng the integrity of our elections, that's for sure.

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Image Source: AAWU

When patient care be under attack? What do you do? Stand up, fight back!

God knows, there are plenty of problems with health care in this country - access, outcomes, etc. When my much beloved primary care physician bailed to practice concierge medicine, it was difficult to find a primary in the MGH-Brigham system who wasn't located a train, two buses, and a walk uphill (both ways) away from where I live. To stay in walking distance of my medical care (admittedly a luxury) I had to settle for having a resident as my PCP. Which is fine in some respects. She's quite good, very responsive, and I like her a lot. But in another year or so, she'll be moving on. I'm trying to convince her to specialize in geriatric primary care, but she seems hell bent on urology. When Dr. O goes, I'll probably get another resident. There are, at present, no PCP's in Boston in the MGH-Brigham system who are accepting patients.

And this is within the non-profit world of medicine.

Everything, it seems to me, is far worse in the for-profit health care systems, which (most? all?) studies seem to suggest have worse outcomes. 

The pressure to spend less on actually delivering care to individual patients, while seeing more and more of those patients in rushed-through, truncated visits is bad enough in the non-profits, let alone in the systems owned by private equity and/or by doctors focused more on profit maximization than on becoming latter-day Dr. Welbys. 

Case in point is Steward Health Care, which was founded in Massachusetts but, post-bankruptcy, is no longer operating here. Among other choice details of their operation: the system didn't pay the bill on a piece of critical equipment, so it got repossessed. Too bad a woman who'd just given birth needed it to save her life. By the time the Steward hospital transferred her to a hospital (non-profit, of course) that had the key device, it was too late. She bled to death, leaving her devastated husband and perfectly healthy baby girl behind. That and a picture of the glowing new mom holding her beautiful infant a short while before she died. 

This woman is not the only one to alleged to have died due to staffing and/or equipment shortages at Steward hospitals. 

Another nifty feature of Steward was its CEO, Dr. Ralph de la Torre, who used the system to fund an extravagent private jet, swanky yacht(s) lifestyle. 

So, while I'm more than happy to see healthcare professionals make a good living, I'm a believer that healthcare institutions shouldn't be run on a for-profit basis.

Apparently, the doctors at Eugene (Oregon) Emergency Physicians (EEP) agree. This is a smallish (40 doctors and PA's), local, doctor-owned practice that runs the emergency department for some local medical centers. They were about to be replaced by Apollo MD, a national corporate for-profit entity. 

EEP pushed back, arguing that bringing in Apollo would violate a 2025 Oregon law that "bans corporations from taking control of a medical practice's operations and finances."

The case garnered national interest because Oregon's new law targets the loopholes large staffing firms have been employing to circumvent state corporate medicine laws.

Most states have laws requiring that doctors own medical practices, not corporations. These rules aim to put patient interests ahead of profit motives. Over the last several years, companies have used a model where a doctor technically owns the local practice, but as Erin Fuse Brown, a professor at Brown University, explains, those physician owners are often not involved in care and cede hiring, firing and other operational functions to the corporation.

Fuse Brown said these arrangements are attractive to hospitals because these companies often promise more revenue and take over the responsibilities that come with running an ER.

"There's worry that these investors or these corporate management companies should not be totally controlling the operations and the clinical decisions of those who are trained to deliver patient care," Fuse Brown said. (Source: NPR)

These rules aim to put patient interests ahead of profit motives which seems to be the heart of the matter for the doctors at EEP, which feared that patient care would be compromised. They also feared that if Apollo started meddling in the delivery of care and they pushed back, they would lose their hours. Which seems like a reasonable double whammy fear: potentially worse care for the patients, potentially worse income for the doctors. 

The EEP pushback was successful. 

The medical center that had been considering going with Apollo decided to stick with EEP. 

Questions are still whirling around about the long-term viability of physician-owned practices. 

Do they need the investment in business expertise and systems that a corporation can provide?

And, as noted in the NPR article, some practices may be nominally physican owned, but those doctor's are owners, not actually delivering any care. So it's not as if Dr. Doug Ross (George Clooney on ER, which I never watched for some reason when he was on it) and Dr. Robby (Noah Wyle on The Pitt, which is pretty much my favorite TV thang) may be owners, but they're hip deep in gore. 

Anyway, happy to see that the little guys at Eugene Emergency Physicians, when they saw that their livelihoods and maybe their patients' lives were under attack, decided to stand up and fight back. 

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Image Source: Vecteezy

Yo, Yo-Yos!

When I was a kid, I loved playing with my yo-yo.

Not that I was all that good. Sure, I mastered the basics: walk the dog; around the world; getting the yo-yo to sleep; that pendulum thingy. But I wasn't a trick-meister, by any means. Nor was anyone I knew - other than, maybe, my brother Tom. I seem to remember him being pretty adept.  

We all had yo-yos. We used them in the schoolyard during recess. We used them solo, when there was no one around to play with and you didn't feel like reading the latest Nancy Drew.

Everyone had a basic wooden Duncan Yo-Yo, with string-string. I don't remember there being any other options. Those snappy translucent yo-yos in fluorescent green, and the aluminum ones, came later. I don't remember there being any nylon string either.

Other than Duncans, the only yo-yos I remember from my childhood were those ridiculous flimsy little plastic ones that came as the prize in cereal or a box of Cracker Jack. They were in size somewhere between a nickel and a quarter, and the string was thread.

Unlike the swell Navy frogmen that came in Kellogg cereals - the ones where you put baking soda/powder in a little compartment in an outsized flipper and got to watch the frogman buzz around the tub on a very important mission - the cheapo plastic button-sized yo-yos did not work. 

You could yo down, but the yo-yo itself was too light, the thread too flimsy, to be able to yo back up. Let alone do a trick.

In my world, y0-yos were popular in the mid-to-late 1950s, and then had a resurgence when I was in high school in the mid-1960's.

In high school, I owned a red wooden Duncan with a white cloud-like striped design.

As I said, I wasn't all that good at it, but I wasn't out-and-out terrible, either. I just didn't excel in yo-yo as I had in playing jacks, the one "sport" I was ever any good at. (A few years ago, I tried to see if I still had my mojo working, but my hands were too big. And it was too damned uncomfortable sitting on a hard floor, let alone getting up from it.)

Back in the day, if there were any yo-yo contests around, I wasn't aware of them.

I do recall a hula hoop contest in the parking lot of the Stop 'n Shop when I was in fourth or fifth grade or so - whenever the hula hoop craze was at its peak. I went with my sister Kath and our friends, but we didn't arrive in time to contest. There were hundreds of kids there, and we just milled around the perimeter, hoops in hand, before getting bored and heading home.

But as I learned recently, competitive yo-yo is a thing, and in late June the nationals, run by the good folks at the National Yo-Yo Contest, were held in Las Vegas.

Lots of divisions and sub-divisions. So lots of contestants, and lots of winners. It's a sport dominated by males -  young males -  and, let me tell you, what these kids can do with a yo-yo is pretty phenomenal. 

Ryan Connolly, a local from North Easton, Mass., was crowned champion of the 4A Division. 4A is described as yo-yo-ing off the string. I couldn't quite picture what stringless yo-yo-ing is, but seeing is understanding. The string is not attached to the yo-yo. You toss the yo-yo and catch it on the string, in the air, and do tricks with it. 

Connolly is what I would call a quasi-professional. There doesn't appear to be any prize money in these contests. You win your medal and a bag o' yo-yo-related prizes. But Connolly - who graduated from UMass Amherst a couple of years ago and who works as a financial analyst - has a side gig coming up with product ideas for a Korean yo-yo maker. Mostly, I'm guessing he's in it for love of the game. And as side-hustles go, this is a pretty fun and interesting.  (And quirky enough to make it to Connolly's LinkedIn profile.) Beats being an influencer!

Connolly is also the World 4A Champion, and will be defending his title in Japan later this month. Good luck, Ryan!

Me? I think I may have a yo-yo around here somewhere. I don't think I have my trusty high-school Duncan, but I seem to remember a more yup-scale yo-yo I got at Sharper Image (oh, those were the days). Anyway, I'm going to scout around and see if I've still got it. (The yo-yo, and my former mad "skills.")

I don't think I'll be trying any 4A tricks, but I'd like to see if I can still walk the dog.

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Image Source:  National YoYo Hall of Fame

Send in the Indianapolis Clowns.

When it comes to baseball, I'm not a 100% purist, longing for the return of men in baggy wool unis sweltering through a double header. I like that they've sped up the game by putting a stopwatch on the pitcher, and an automatic runner at second when game's go to extras. At Fenway, I enjoy singing Sweet Caroline between the top and bottom of the eighth, even when the Red Sox are losing, which these days they're mostly doing. And I actually like Banana Ball.

For those unfamiliar with Banana Ball, it's a Harlem Globe Trotter style game, centered on the Savannah Bananas.

The team tours the country playing what it calls Banana Ball: a family-friendly, souped-up, TikTok-ready version of the national pastime. Games feature singing and dancing and celebrity cameos, plus backflipping outfielders, stilt-walking batters, and the occasional double to the gap. Last year, according to the organization’s own data, the Bananas and their affiliated teams sold 2.2 million tickets—more than 11 different MLB franchises. (Source: The Atlantic)

I wasn't among those 2.2 million ticket buyers. The Bananas came to Fenway, and I entered the lottery, but didn't make it through to ticket purchase. I didn't score this season, either, although just as well. Walking to Fenway for a game is one thing, trekking to Gillette Stadium, where this year's games are being played, is quite another.

Still, I do like the Bananas. 

I also like baseball history. And if there's one sport that's full o' history, it's baseball. 

Part of this history is its sordid history of segregation, and the glorious history of the Negro Leagues. 

The most famous of the Negro League teams was probably the Homestead Grays, which featured superstars like Josh Gibson and Cool Papa Bell. Pitcher Satchel Paige played for a couple of Negro League teams, including the Kansas City Monarchs.  (In the early 1940s, my father saw Paige and the Monarchs play an exhibition game at Holy Cross' Fitton Field in Worcester.) Say Hey, Willie Mays started out playing with the Birmingham Black Barons. 

The Indianapolis Clowns, one of the lesser known Negro League teams, is being resurrected as one of the teams that plays as a foil for the Savannah Bananas. (The other teams are the Party Animals, the Firefighters, the Texas Tailgaters, and the Loco Beach Coconuts.)

The revival of the Clowns, which is being done in conjunction with the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, is interesting on a number of different fronts. 

One is that the Clowns in their heyday did a lot of clowning around that played into racial stereotypes - shuffling Stepin Fetchits of the diamond. The Banana Ballers are well aware of the stereotype, and have to walk the tightrope between presenting their players as athletes and performers. This is the case across all their teams, but has particular resonance for the Indianpolis Clowns, given their legacy as a Negro League team. (Their most famous player was none other than Hank Aaron, who briefly played for the Clowns before signing on with the Boston Braves.)

Another thread of the new Banana Ball Indianapolis Clowns story is the desire to promote baseball to Black kids. The Clowns are a diverse team, but they prominantly feature Black players. Former Red Sox player (and fan favorite) Jackie Bradley, Jr., is one of them, as he's now playing fo the Clowns. As is Mo'ne Davis, who famously made news a decade ago for being the first girl to pitch and win a game at the Little League World Series. Mo'ne, by the way, has a master's degree in sports management from Columbia University.

Black players dominate the NBA and NFL, but their representation in Major League Baseball has fallen over the last few decades from a high of nearly 20% to a bit under 7% this season. There are a number of reasons for this, including a lack of urban organizations enccouraging partcipation in baseball, and thus a lack of opportunities to play, and the expenses associated with playing the game at a competitive youth level. 

While Black participation has declined, the number of Hispanics (many from the Dominican Republic and Venezuela) playing in the majors has grown to nearly 30%. Asian players are also coming on - Shohei Otani, anyone? - and now make up about 3% of the current rosters. 

I love the idea of increasing Black participation in baseball. More Mookie Betts, please! And I love the idea of anything that promotes interest in baseball, IMHO the best game ever. Even if it's the Banana Ball which, let's face it, is kind of silly. But it's entertaining. And it's baseball. 

So yay Indianapolis Clowns. LFG!

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