BY DAN
KENNEDY
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Monday, August 02, 2004
NO REAGAN. When Ronald
Reagan died recently, George W. Bush's fans tried to compare their
man to the Gipper. No, they didn't try to claim he was as gifted a
communicator as Reagan. (To put it mildly.) But, like Reagan, they
said, Bush is committed to a few big ideas, and leaves the details to
others.
Now, I was no fan of Reagan, and am
more than a little bemused by the Republicans' largely successful
effort at turning him into their Franklin Roosevelt. Nevertheless,
Reagan towers over Bush. If you don't believe me, read Strobe
Talbott's review
of Reagan and Gorbachev: How the Cold War Ended, by Jack F.
Matlock Jr., published in this week's New York Times Book
Review.
Matlock depicts Reagan as
understanding almost from the beginning that Mikhail Gorbachev was a
different kind of Soviet leader - and that Reagan responded with a
single-minded intensity and engagement aimed at appealing to and
reinforcing Gorbachev's best instincts. Talbott writes:
Matlock describes in
telling detail how Reagan rehearsed for his first meeting with
Gorbachev, which took place in Geneva in November 1985. Reagan
assigned the role of the Soviet leader to Matlock who, for maximum
authenticity, played his part in Russian, mimicking Gorbachev's
confident, loquacious style. Matlock also sent Reagan a series of
"spoof memos" that were "interlaced with jokes and anecdotes,"
based on an educated guess at what Gorbachev's own advisers were
telling him in preparation for the encounter.
Shortly before setting off
for Geneva, Reagan dictated a long memo of his own, laying out his
assessment of the man he was about to meet. The Reagan game
plan was to look for areas of common interest, be candid about
points of contention and support Gorbachev's reforms while (in
Matlock's paraphrase) "avoiding any demand for 'regime change.'"
He cautioned the members of his administration not to rub
Gorbachev's nose in any concessions he might make. Above all,
Reagan wanted to establish a relationship with his Soviet
counterpart that would make it easier to manage conflicts lest
they escalate to thermonuclear war - an imperative for every
American president since Eisenhower.
Can you imagine anyone writing such
things about Bush's diplomatic style, say, in 2018? I can't. Bush's
entire approach to foreign policy has been disengagement other than
the occasional diktat, coupled with almost a pathological need
to rub our allies' noses in the reality of American military
power.
BYE, BYE NOMAR. If Nomar
Garciaparra were determined to leave town after the season, then that
alone justified the blockbuster trade. Let's be serious: the Red Sox
are not going to the World Series this year. If they could make
themselves even a little bit better by not letting Nomar just walk
away, then so be it.
But the Globe's
Dan
Shaughnessy and the
Herald's Gerry
Callahan (sub. req.) claim
it was quite a bit worse than that - that Garciaparra had become a
cancer on the team, and that the Sox will be better off without
him.
Yes, I realize that Shaughnessy and
Callahan are the Negativity Twins. (Although if they were all
that negative, you'd think they'd be ripping the front office
for botching chances they had to sign Nomar.) Callahan, in
particular, seems out of line in all but accusing Garciaparra of
faking the seriousness of his Achilles' tendon injury.
Still, both columns have the ring
of truth. Shaughnessy writes:
His misery dates back to
before this season. After the Sox beat the Oakland A's in the
fourth game of the 2003 Division Series, the Sox boarded the team
bus for the first leg of their journey back to Oakland for the
series finale. Everyone was buoyant and gripped with the prospect
of going to Oakland and winning Game 5 ... everyone except for the
star shortstop. He got on the bus, turned toward the excited
throng, and said, "Why is everyone so happy? As soon as we lose,
everyone's just going to rip us."
That was Nomar. The ultimate
downer. The wonderful talent who hated playing in a place where
people cared too much.
Garciaparra was a great player, and
may be again, and I hate to see him go. But the Red Sox have
certainly proven over the years that they can lose with him. So it's
not as though he was indispensable.
posted at 8:59 AM |
1 comments
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1 Comments:
Dan, you are so wrong about Nomar.
*Is.* Nomar *is* a great player, not "was" a great player. This is one of the worst trades ever. Just because he wasn't willing to be a chump and take whatever the team's fabulously wealthy owners were willing to throw his way, just because he wanted what amounts to a tinier bit bigger piece of the pie, doesn't mean he didn't want to stay in Boston.
I can't understand why fans so often accept basic business and economic principles when considering management's point of view, but not when considering the players' point of view. The money is there, and I don't know about you, but it's the players I pay to see, not John Henry. The team offered 15 million per year last spring; Nomar countered with 17 million. Instead of attempting to negotiate a figure somewhere in the middle, involving what would have amounted to pocket change from their perspective, the Red Sox broke off talks, then came back months later with the "market adjustment" figure of 12 million, then tried to get rid of him in the offseason.
Meanwhile, Nomar bought a house here.
The Red Sox were not sincere about re-signing Nomar. Nomar was sincere about wanting to stay here, his desire to preserve some of his privacy and dignity, and his distaste for a certain vengeful curly-haired columnist from the Globe notwithstanding.
Nomar is the classiest guy in baseball. He was the face of the Red Sox, its heart and soul, someone we could believe in. He never gave us anything less than his very best. Trading him away will go down as the worst deal since you-know-who. Go, Cubs!
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Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.
