What's Right with Baseball?

World Series 2013: 
What's Right with Baseball? St. Louis' Carpenter is Exhibit 1-A

(This post was written for Digital Sports Desk - please visit the site during the 2013 World Series for coverage)

BOSTON -- As adult parents who value sports, it is with each and every at bat, practice or game when we try to teach our children well. We teach the fundamentals and the values of hard work. We teach the rewards of good fitness through training and of practice and gaining expertise through execution and repetition. We teach good sportsmanship and explain that concept with the words, "Respect your opponent."

Preparations for G1 of 2013 World Series at Fenway Park (Getty Images).

In victory and success, we teach our young athletes to act as though they've been there before and to pay tribute to a worthy opponent. In defeat, we teach the values of trusting teammates, learning from mistakes, keeping a disappointed head up, looking an opponent or inquisitive reporter dead in the eyes and living to compete another day on a higher plain.

So, I ask today? Why, on earth, do we not celebrate the fact that the Boston Red Sox and the St. Louis Cardinals, the two remaining Major League Baseball teams, the two teams with the best records in their respective leagues, are squaring off today for the best-of-seven World Series without so much as one syllable of trash-talking, rivalry-sparking, "look at me" posturing, media blow-out-of-proportioning rhetoric?

Are we not entertained?

The two teams are damn good and damn-near mirror images. They both possess: Strong, highly respected and professional managers - let's call it "great coaching." They have good, but not great "Hall of Fame starting pitching. They both run well, take an extra base, bat well, mainly by awaiting good pitches to force high pitch-counts. Both teams play hard, possess very deep line-ups, play strong defense and have depth and quality bullpens. Only in the last category can you give any one team an edge and that is relief pitching to the Red Sox.

To properly illustrate the overall point of great players doing their everything to help their respective teams win a game, I give you "Exhibit 1-A," in St. Louis second baseman, Matt Carpenter.

Carpenter broke from spring training not sure what his role or position would be with the Cards. He played 132 games at second base, 32 at third and two as an outfielder. While doing so, he became the team's lead-off hitter and all-around "go-to" guy by leading the major leagues in hits (199) runs (126) and doubles (55). Carpenter led all MLB second basemen in batting average (.321) and on-base percentage (.395).

"I'm a guy who rarely swings at that first pitch," said Carpenter as he sat almost by his lonesome during MLB's media day at Fenway Park yesterday. "I'm a guy who tries to have long 'at-bats' and in this series (with the pressure high), I'm going to go up there and take the same type of 'at-bat' as I always do."

Is that the key to St. Louis' postseason success, just doing the little things they always do?

"There's a lot of reasons why we've made it this far, but I think, first and foremost, we've had a good ability to keep moving when adversity hits us, whether it's an injury or when somebody gets sent down, we continue to keep moving forward. We compete every day," said Carpenter barely acknowledging the fact he was a big part of the Cards' success in this, his break-out year.

"Toward the end of spring training is when I had that moment where I felt 'I can do this,'" he said humbly. "It continued to grow as the games (played) started to pile up. I didn't know what was going to happen or even what expectations I had, but I did know, I was going to work hard at it and get the opportunity to win that job (starting at 2B). I came into spring training with that mind set. With the season that I've had, I couldn't have told you I was going to do that, but I did have confidence in myself as a player and I knew, given the opportunity, that I could probably do something."

Carpenter views his role, not as the typical major league lead-off hitter -- getting on and stealing bases -- but more as a man who can get a good look at a large number of pitches, then get the St. Louis offense going. While his stolen bases only total three, he did lead the league in two-base hits.

Cards 2B Matt Carpenter (Getty Images).

"We've always been an aggressive base-running team, trying to take the extra base and make things happen," he said. "We don't steal a lot of bases but we do run them aggressively. We're going to continue to do what's gotten us here and that's doing what we can do to just get on base in the first place and then trying to find a way to score - whatever that means, that's what we'll do.

"Little things is what wins the post season game, base-running, good defense - something like that," said the young infielder with the confidence of a veteran like Derek Jeter.

On the flip-side, Carpenter and the Cards are fully aware of the fact the top of the Boston red Sox order takes advantages in base-running and, while relief pitching might've grabbed headlines in the American league Championship Series, Boston's superior defense and base-running might've been the key differences in defeating the Detroit Tigers.

"They've got some guys in (Dustin) Pedroia, (Shane) Victorino and (Jacoby) Ellsbury are guys that can definitely steal bases and run the bases well, so that's something that we're going to have to be aware of, but we've got the best catcher in baseball (Yadier Molina) behind the plate, so we're not too worried about 'getting abused' in the stolen base department as I think we'll be able to handle that, 'just fine. But, we know, we have to play defense, hit the cut-off man and do all those little things to help control that."

A little Huff. Post syndicating ...

Lockout? What Lockout? huff.to/113uJtL via @huffpostsports
— DigitalSportsDesk (@DigSportsDesk) January 29, 2013

TL

Olympic Memories: '84 --> '88 --> '92

The twin-propeller airplane was the first flight out from LaGuardia Airport in New York to Providence, Rhode Island. My destination was the Providence Civic Center, site of the very first in a series of pre-Olympic tune-up games between the 1984 Men’s Olympic Basketball team and a group of National Basketball Association stars thrown together in each city leading up to the opening ceremonies of the Los Angeles Olympics.

Upon arrival at the small arena in downtown Providence, I dropped my bags in the locker room designated for the NBA stars, and John Bagley, a prominent Boston College shooting guard and then-starter for the Cleveland Cavaliers, shouted out, “Hey, what size d’you wear?” 

I wore size 11, larger than the average 20-something male, but tiny in terms of the needs of most NBA stars.  Bagley wore 15s, and he grabbed my cheap pair of PONYs and squeezed his ‘big dogs’ inside as best he could.  He was ready.

Barkley congratulates Kurtinaitis in '92

As I counted some 9-10 NBA stars scattered around the locker, I remember walking down the small corridor to check in with my ABA-USA colleagues whom I knew distantly.  The head of the federation, Bill Wall, was busy hanging a small ABA-USA banner on the scorer’s table, while production assistants from ABC Sports tacked up wrinkled ABC Sports banners in strategic locations courtside. The banners were the type cheesy sports bars would steal and mount to their ceilings or bar room walls. I shook my head. This is sports marketing at the highest level? The Olympics?

Next step was to check in with our opponents, the 1984 USA Olympic Team, mainly to see my college buddy, Chris Mullin, who had just been named to the team. The players were all dressing, pulling on athletic socks and preparing for the Sunday afternoon game.  I figured the “right” thing to do would be to introduce myself to USA head coach Bobby Knight, then the vaunted coach of the Indiana Hoosiers.

“Coach,” I exclaimed with some bravado and confidence, “I’m Terry Lyons of the NBA, and I’m helping out with our players for today’s game.  If there’s anything I can do to help you out, please let me know.”

Simple enough, right? Knight’s response was classic. 

“If we need any help from you, we’re in big bleepin’ trouble,” he said.

I looked him dead in the eye, pivoted, and never looked back. I didn’t speak a word and haven’t said a word to him ever since.  I’m sure he realizes it’s his loss, right?

The USA played its series of games against the NBA stars, and all was well as they took the gold medal at the Games with the likes of Michael Jordan, Patrick Ewing and Mullin - all fresh out of college – leading the way.  Standing in that locker room in Providence, I would never have imagined that eight years later, I would be inside the USA locker room in Barcelona, preparing the 1992 USA Basketball Dream Team to walk out to accept their gold medals, minutes after their resounding victory over Croatia and completing a month-long frenzy that was the birth and coronation of the greatest team in team sports history – The Dream Team.  Just like it was yesterday, I recall the Barcelona volunteer from Olympic basketball operations handing me the official Olympic Games boxscore, a pink page from the “triplicate” hand-written and old-school form.

Four years earlier, I had worked with the 1988 team as it trained throughout the USA before its trip to the ’88 Seoul Olympics under Coach John Thompson, the legend of Hoya Paranoya at Georgetown, the BIG East powerhouse. My lasting memory of that team was some quality time with then College Player of the Year, Danny Manning, who admitted to me that he thought the team was in trouble and that he honestly doubted their ability to bring home the gold. It was a combination of his honest review of their roster and its lack of scoring/shooting and a feeling of total burn-out, even before the team had left U.S. soil.

Indeed, he was right.  The then-Soviet Union defeated the USA and won the gold medal with the likes of the late Coach Alexander Gomelski, future Hawks forward Alexandre Volkov , future Golden State Warriors shooting guard Sarunas Marciulionis , center Arvydas Sabonis, legendary Naismith Hall of Fame inductee and sharp-shooter Rimas Kurtinaitis, who shot the lights out in ’88 and scored from three-point range at will, as USA defensive specialist Dan Majerle couldn’t stop nor contain him.

Whether it was those early days in ’84, the challenge of the ‘88 Games or the pinnacle in 1992, I was very proud to have “USA” on my polo shirt and honored to have played a small part in bringing the NBA players to the 1992 Barcelona Olympics medal ceremony. What many didn’t realize was that I was just as happy to see Lithuania’s Marciulionis accepting his bronze and, even happier for Croatia’s Drazen Petrovic as he accepted his silver. I was extremely proud of my friend Mully, who was now wearing his second Olympic gold.

The times had changed and, because of my job as the NBA Vice President of International Communications. I was thrust into this amazing world of international basketball intrigue.  From the heights of ’92 to the “near scare” in 2000 in Sydney to the lows of 2002 (in the World Championship) and 2004 in Athens when we managed only a bronze, it was a long, strange trip. Even as current USA Basketball chairman Jerry Colangelo and the great Duke coach and multi-year head coach of the senior national team Mike Krzyzewski took to the helm to re-build the USA Basketball men’s teams and, more importantly, their pride, I had a front-row, courtside seat at the table. 

This is the first post in a series of blogs on the Olympic Games. Most will focus on my personal experiences at the Olympics (1992 to 2004), while some entries will come from working alongside the teams in ’84. ’88 and 2008. I will also post interesting viewpoints from the non-basketball Olympians, all gold medal winners. I will post some insights from the Dream Team, conduct a give and take, back and forth Q&A with Jack McCallum, the author of a great 20-year reflection on the Dream Team, and I look forward to providing some insight into the current USA athletes, all representing the USA with the dream of winning an Olympic medal. 

Please stay tuned to the Huffington Post and to my online magazine, http://www.DigitalSportsDesk.com for commentary beginning today and going through the closing ceremonies of London2012.

So, who is the Vicki Iseman?

Save yourself some time, as the old Huffinton Post has already surfed the 'net. So, be sure to check out the Huffington web site. The Washington Post came up with this:

McCain's Ties To Lobbyist Worried Aides
Before 2000 Campaign, Advisers Tried to Bar Her

By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum and Michael D Shear
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, February 21, 2008; A01

Aides to Sen. John McCain confronted a telecommunications lobbyist in late 1999 and asked her to distance herself from the senator during the presidential campaign he was about to launch, according to one of McCain's longest-serving political strategists.

John Weaver, who was McCain's closest confidant until leaving his current campaign last year, said he met with Vicki Iseman at the Center Cafe at Union Station and urged her to stay away from McCain. Association with a lobbyist would undermine his image as an opponent of special interests, aides had concluded.

Members of the senator's small circle of advisers also confronted McCain directly, according to sources, warning him that his continued ties to a lobbyist who had business before the powerful commerce committee he chaired threatened to derail his presidential ambitions.

The New York Times published a lengthy article on its Web site last night detailing McCain's ties to Iseman. "It's a shame that the New York Times has chosen to smear John McCain like this," said Charles R. Black Jr., a top adviser to McCain's current presidential campaign and the head of a Washington lobbying firm called BKSH & Associates. "Neither Senator McCain nor the campaign will dignify false rumors and gossip by responding to them. John McCain has never done favors for anyone, not lobbyists or any special interest. That's a clear 24-year record."

The McCain team issued a statement last night decrying "gutter politics" and saying the story -- which had been reported on the Drudge Report Web site in December -- was a "a hit and run smear campaign."

Iseman, 40, who joined the Arlington-based firm of Alcalde & Fay as a secretary and rose to partner within a few years, often touted her access to the chairman of the Senate commerce committee as she worked on behalf of clients such as Cablevision, EchoStar and Tribune Broadcasting, according to several other lobbyists who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

McCain, after his unsuccessful 2000 campaign, has emerged as the front-runner for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. His reputation as a crusader for Washington reform -- forged during almost 30 years in the Senate -- is based largely on his stinging critiques of the role played by lobbyists. He routinely decries earmarks, or pet projects, inserted into legislation. He has repeatedly maintained that he has "never, ever done a favor for any lobbyist or special interest group." It was this reputation that McCain's closest aides sought to protect.

"We were running a campaign about reforming Washington, and her showing up at events and saying she had close ties to McCain was harmful," one aide said.

The aide said the message to Iseman that day at Union Station in 1999 was clear: "She should get lost." The aide said Iseman stood up and left angrily.

Iseman could not be reached at her home or office last night. But she told the Times via e-mail that "I never discussed with him alleged things I had 'told people,' that had made their way 'back to' him." The Times reported that she said she never received special treatment from the senator from Arizona or his office.

Three telecom lobbyists and a former McCain aide, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that Iseman spoke up regularly at meetings of telecom lobbyists in Washington, extolling her connections to McCain and his office. She would regularly volunteer at those meetings to be the point person for the telecom industry in dealing with McCain's office.

Concern about Iseman's presence around McCain at one point led to her being banned from his Senate office, according to sources close to McCain. Senior McCain aide Mark Salter, in an e-mail, denied that Iseman was ever barred from the office or was even a frequent presence there.

Iseman's bio on her lobbying firm's Web site notes, "She has extensive experience in telecommunications, representing corporations before the House and Senate Commerce Committees."

Her partners at Alcalde & Fay include L.A. "Skip" Bafalis, a former five-term Republican congressman from Florida, and Michael A. Brown, the son of former commerce secretary Ronald H. Brown and a former Democratic candidate for mayor of the District.

Its client list is heavy with municipalities and local government entities, which suggests that its major emphasis is on the controversial business of winning narrowly targeted, or "earmarked," appropriations.

In the years that McCain chaired the commerce committee, Iseman lobbied for Lowell W. "Bud" Paxson, the head of what used to be Paxson Communications, now Ion Media Networks, and was involved in a successful lobbying campaign to persuade McCain and other members of Congress to send letters to the Federal Communications Commission on behalf of Paxson.

In late 1999, McCain wrote two letters to the FCC urging a vote on the sale to Paxson of a Pittsburgh television station. The sale had been highly contentious in Pittsburgh and involved a multipronged lobbying effort among the parties to the deal.

At the time he sent the first letter, McCain had flown on Paxson's corporate jet four times to appear at campaign events and had received $20,000 in campaign donations from Paxson and its law firm. The second letter came on Dec. 10, a day after the company's jet ferried him to a Florida fundraiser that was held aboard a yacht in West Palm Beach.

McCain has argued that the letters merely urged a decision and did not call for action on Paxson's behalf. But when the letters became public, William E. Kennard, chairman of the FCC at the time, denounced them as "highly unusual" coming from McCain, whose committee chairmanship gave him oversight of the agency.

McCain's campaign denied that Iseman or anyone else from her firm or from Paxson "discussed with Senator McCain" the FCC's consideration of the station deal. "Neither Ms. Iseman, nor any representative of Paxson and Alcalde and Fay, personally asked Senator McCain to send a letter to the FCC regarding this proceeding," the campaign said.

Iseman and her firm, which includes high-profile Republicans and Democrats, have also represented a number of other companies that have had issues before McCain and the commerce committee, including Univision, a Spanish-language television network. Iseman clients have given nearly $85,000 to McCain campaigns since 2000, according to records at the Federal Election Commission.

Staff writer James V. Grimaldi and research editor Alice Crites contributed to this report.