Save David Wright

The Mets' star third baseman, David Wright, is on the verge of becoming the first player of my generation to have his career derailed by a new ballpark. In his first four full seasons in the major leagues, he batted .309, had an OPS of .922 and averaged 26 home runs and 122 RBI per season. This year, in the new Collaterized Debt Obligation Field, with its cavernous dimensions and high walls, he is still hitting .323, but with only six home runs and 48 RBI.

This is certainly a strange phenomenon for the 17-year-old era of new ballparks, begun with Camden Yards in Baltimore. Most of them were purposefully built small, to further goad the partly steroids-induced explosion of home runs around the turn on the century. The Mets, aiming to tastefully replicate Ebbets Field, took a different approach (though, Shea, was a pitchers' park as well). Wright has admitted to changing his game because of the new field, and the split between his road and home stats are noticeably different.

He's also the best-established player to have to deal with a new park mid-career that specifically hurts his strengths. Among other stars in pitcher-friendly parks, Ichiro Suzuki, in Seattle's Safeco Field, is a slap hitter who focuses on getting on base and scoring runs, not power; Adrian Gonzalez, in San Diego's Petco Park, slightly bucks the trend, but is better on the road; and the power hitters from the Oakland A's stadium, an old-school pitchers' park, kept up great power numbers because they were on steroids.

Wright, on the other hand, in his first four years, was establishing a career that could've been Hall of Fame-worthy. To see that squashed (assuming this year isn't a blip, but the start of a new career phase because of the park) is unfair and should end. Among all the problems the Mets face -- ridiculous amounts of injuries, executives challenging players to fights, cruelly embarrasing reporters mid-press conference -- this one seems the easiest to fix. The team can move in the fences moderately during the offseason. Even better, that will create a few hundred more seats they can charge $80 each for -- and then watch go unfilled.

Enough About Henry Louis Gates

Six days into the controversy surrounding Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates' arrest, I'm dumbfounded by how strongly it's persisted. More interesting than the actual content, though, are people's responses to it. The incident itself -- at its start, at least -- wasn't racial in nature, but almost everything about the cottage industry of commentary that's sprung up around it is. More specifically, it's about what one thinks of police officers.

From reading and listening to responses, those who hold the police sergeant blameless believe officers can do no wrong. Those who think Gates' protests are merited -- or those, like myself, who view this in shades of puzzled gray -- are much more skeptical of the police. Obviously, the first group is nearly all white. They live in the suburbs or at least relatively peaceful neighborhoods where officers serve as the gentle reminder of law and order, which rarely has to be enforced. Their implied presence controls the situation. Furthermore, most officers, including those in city departments, are white. The latter group is obviously multiracial. They've seen people of their races arrested and imprisoned more often, and police officers be overly and unfairly aggressive with people of their races more often.

The idea that officers only work/exist to protect the public good is dubious. Like many people in every profession, they become hardened from years of doing the job and fall into patterns of behavior and action. Two black men pulled over in a car are going to yield heightened tension, more cruisers and more background checks, compared to two white men in the same situation.

It's surprising that people were so upset that President Obama chose to articulate this historical truism. Many, including myself, don't understand the situation because we're white, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. On a federal, institutional level, it's always disappointing that people aren't willing to review their past and think critically about how it affects us today. This isn't only true of the U.S.; Spain and Chile quickly come to mind. Instead, we say, "OK, that era's passed. Glad it's over. We're so different now and won't let it at all influence our thinking today. No need to act like past X years happened."

Thank You, Douglas Bailey

Should we care at all about the comments people, usually anonymously, write at the bottom of news stories? Their content opens a lid onto part of the population that is despicable: Whiny, sarcastic, uninformed and cruel about everything. It scares me to think that I might actually think like this in my middle and/or old age, when life becomes harder, smaller and too familiar. Then again, even in the most inflammatory stories at sites like the Globe's, only about 600 people post a comment, which is only a sliver of the population.

Last week, along came an op-ed piece in the Globe by Douglas Bailey, the president of a public relations company, that makes a wonderfully compelling argument. He writes, "I realize these forums have their advocates. Publishers apparently believe forums help drive people to their website and provide opportunity for interactive exchanges of ideas, comments, corrections, and expansion of debate and topics. Instead, these forums are insidiously contributing to the devaluation of journalism, blurring the truth, confusing the issues, and diminishing serious discourse beyond even talk radio’s worst examples."

The column is worth reading in full, but he goes on to make the point that newspapers actually devalue their brand by allowing anonymous sniping, rumor and falsehoods because all those things are exact opposites of what make newspapers valuable. He also sympathizes with reporters, saying that their writing is degraded by comments.

Of course, Media Nation, an excellent Web site with reporting and opinion on the greater Boston media scene that advocates for the next generation of journalism, including comments, didn't take kindly to the column, though generally for a reason beyond the column's central argument. It has an anonymous comments section that runs smoothly. Dan Kennedy, who produces everything on the site, would probably argue that's because he polices comments more strictly than papers do with theirs. Really, though, his comments are more civil because his is a niche publication with an educated readership that is genuinely interested in the future of (Boston) media and thinking critically about it. He's an apple, my paper (or any paper) is an orange.

I realize the business side of 21st-century media is defining itself by user-generated content, interactivity and all of the postmodern ramifications that come with dismantling a uniform structure that presents everything within its pages as a body of truth. But I've also yet to meet a reporter for a general-interest publication who's found comments assist his work. The concept of read-and-response has yet to be shaped in a productive way. Reporters live in the world every day -- it's inherent to the job. Why do papers need anonymous comments to pretend they're breathing with the masses more than they already are? Much of the Internet's content is empty calories, but comment boards are worse: They're denigrating calories.

Me And My Stereo Down By The Schoolyard

Today, after more than 15 years with my stereo, pictured above, I recycled it. I believe my aunt and uncle gave it for me for Hannukah when I was in fifth grade and first started to buy music. It was a fixture in my bedroom, my dorm rooms and two apartment kitchens -- all with an impeccably chosen music collection, of course. One year in college, I put a sticker for a short-lived band called Headphones on one side, thinking that would be ironic.

But about two years ago, the stereo started eating tapes and a year after that, the CD player's cover popped up, never to go down again. Since then, it's only played the radio, which is more than serviceable. Nonetheless, in addition to it's deficiencies, I'm moving to a smaller apartment that calls for a smaller stereo and an electronics recycling event happened today, so I decided to buy a new one.

As long indicated on this blog, I'm quite ambivalent about the 21st century for many different reasons, and am still a true believer in the importance of a stereo. I don't own an iPod yet -- how one consumes music using it bothers me -- and believe there's something very liberating about the idea of blasting your music out to the rest of the world to hear. It might be obnoxious, appreciated or somewhere in between, but there's something profoundly communal about it. I miss my old stereo.

Thanks to Simon and Garfunkel and !!! for inspiring the post's title. In the spirit of blasting obnoxious music, I'll take the latter.

Update: For the photo shoot, I was compelled to don my Belle & Sebastian shirt. That their T-shirt to promote their band features a giant ampersand and their name in small font is probably the best possible visual explanation of their aesthetic.

Further Update: Perhaps the saying about how famous deaths come in threes also pertains to my dearly beloved household appliances. Yesterday, my alarm clock died. It's nearly as old as my stereo, and has gone with me to even more exotic locales, such as Patagonia. Hopefully, I avert a third death.

Jill Lepore, I Love You, But You're Bringing Me Down

"The Name of War," Jill Lepore's first book, is excellent. It prompts you to ponder colonial American history from a different perspective, but without forcing postmodern analysis or thought on you. It won the Bancroft Prize, one of the three most prestigious annual awards for historical works. It probably ranks as the best book I read through all of Swarthmore.

So, then why do I have so much trouble enjoying Lepore's writing in the New Yorker, which she, apparently and impressively, writes in her free time from teaching at Harvard? Each one, whether a historical essay or book review, has interesting nuggets (such as this: "Stages of life are artifacts. Adolescence is a useful contrivance, midlife is a moving target, senior citizens are an interest group, and tweenhood is just plain made up"), but, as a whole, fails to capture me. The most recent one, reviewing two books about parenting, put me to sleep a couple of times. I really want to like everything she writes. I'm mad at myself for not loving them. To end on a higher note, this blog post of hers is elegant.

Thanks to LCD Soundsystem for inspiring the post's title.

You Can't Have It Both Ways, Part II

Deciphering whether "the economy" -- whatever that means -- is starting to recover is too difficult. It is to vast to wrap one's arms around. However, most of the country's leading banks want us to know they're doing fine: Ten of them have returned the TARP money!

At the same time, though, the industry is contesting attempts to create a consumer watchdog agency, regulate the derivatives market, which partly created the recession, reform compensation so it's actually tied to successful investing, all while raising whatever fees it can and avoiding the central question: how to remain effective while still having billions of dollars of worthless mortgages on their asset sheets.

The government shouldn't serve as the economy of last resort without forcing the industry that created these problems to systemically change so this situation. For some reason, all of Greenwich, Conn., and men everywhere who wear blue dress shirts with white collars doesn't realize this general principle: One can't be rescued and then continue on as before, as if one wasn't rescued. Wasn't Lloyd Blankfein, only three months ago, proposing to reform the industry's compensation system? So much for all that.

Maybe the same conditions should've been placed on JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, et al, for returning the TARP money as were for those with subprime mortgages: Those who wanted to repay their debts early were either contractually barred from doing so or had to pay such onerous fees that it wasn't worth it.

You Can't Have It Both Ways, Part I

While this post's title certainly can apply to the cornucopia of conservative Republican politicians who stridently preach -- and try to legislate -- heterosexual moral values, only to be unfaithful to their wives, I'll expand the title to the Senate's entire Democratic caucus and it's puzzling position on Guantanamo Bay.

Nearly all Democrats side with President Obama, and say they want to close the detention center that operates, at best, on the law's fuzzy boundaries. Yet, when the time comes to pay for its closing, they balk and vote resoundingly against it. The Obama administration's plans on how to close the prison weren't concrete at the time, but that seemed to be used as the cover for caving to Republicans' pressure on the issue. (That caucus seems most interested in flouting the Geneva Conventions and fanning distrust, if not hatred, of the U.S.) Most humorously, the residents of Hardin, Mont., have requested Guantanamo detainees be sent to their empty private prison, yet their state's Congressional delegation immediately objected.

Why are prisons built if not to hold prisoners? Generally, places with prisons support locating them there because the area is economically depressed and people view them as a way to create jobs. As Attorney General Eric Holder has correctly noted, the country has successfully prosecuted many terrorism suspects in U.S. courts before and can do so again. Obviously, some of the people detained at Guantanamo are exceptional cases, but not so exceptional to best our capacity to give them the punishment they deserve within bounds that must be respected. Will it be easier for terrorism suspects to plot from a Supermax prison than a Cuban naval base? Does placing them anywhere on U.S. soil make it more likely other terrorists will attack those prisons, instead, of, say, the high population centers they've chosen as previous targets? Answering in the affirmative doesn't make sense.

It's strange how, even at the federal level, politicians are still subject to NIMBY-ism, and the idea that people support a solution to a problem, just not one that in any way affects them. Apparently, there is no level of representation and job security, which is stronger than prison bars for about 85 percent of congressmen, at which politicans decide they will do something in the broadest interest of the country instead of that of the usually myopic districts they represent.

The more recent, even more galling example was Barney Frank's call to G.M.'s CEO, successfully pressuring him to keep open a distribution facility in Norton, Mass., several more months than the company planned. So much for Frank's belief in the free market. The WSJ's editorial page righfully castigated him for grossly distorting the market. Behavior like this does more harm than good and means our government will more likely lose its massive investment in G.M., instead of having a chance at recouping it.

As David Brooks wrote in a column last week, "And Congressional governance is a haven for special interest pleading and venal logrolling. When the executive branch is dominant you often get coherent proposals that may not pass. When Congress is dominant, as now, you get politically viable mishmashes that don’t necessarily make sense." That's deeply disheartening.

Thanks to the Juan Maclean for the post's title.

Who Can Blame Him?

So Mark Sanford, South Carolina's Republican governor, fell in love with Buenos Aires and an Argentine woman living there. It's hard not to, considering Buenos Aires is the world's coolest city and its women are attractive. I was fortunate enough to spend a week there five years ago, walking the side streets of Recoleta and Palermo, eating excellent grass-fed beef, drinking cheap red wine and watching the Copa America.

Oh, wait, Sanford is a father of four who's based part of his political career on moral rectitude and the invioable bonds of the heterosexual family, and when he most recently traipsed down to Buenos Aires (apparently to end the affair), he didn't tell anyone, including his semi-estranged wife, staff and lieutenant governor, where he was going, nearly creating a constitutional crisis in South Carolina, and when he finally told his press people where he was, three days into the trip, he lied by saying he was hiking on the Appalachian Trail to clear his mind after a particularly difficult legislative session? Oh, um. This is comically remarkable. Everyone should blame him.

If one were to totally remove the context from the e-mails Sanford sent to his mistress -- which I realize is impossible -- they're actually romantic and touching. To wit: "I have been specializing in staying focused on decisions and actions of the head for a long time now — and you have my heart. You have oh so many attributes that pulls it in this direction. Do you really comprehend how beautiful your smile is? Have you been told lately how warm your eyes are and how they softly glow with the special nature of your soul." This is a man genuinely in love -- just not with his wife and also genuinely conflicted and terribly incapable of being a governor or generally respected.

The amazing thing about politicians enmeshing themselves in scandal -- of the bed, the bank account or otherwise -- is they always seem to believe things will either go undiscovered or resolve themselves neatly. One thing I've learned as a reporter is the story always comes out. It might not reveal itself the first time you take a run at it or it might not reveal itself in full at first. But, eventually, the story is always there in all of its sad glory, for everyone to see.

I wonder if this hurts or boosts the Appalachian Trail's business this summer.