Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Unavoidable Coincidences: The Newark Bears and the Trajectory of a City's Hope

You'll have to hang with me as I do a little reasearch on the Newark Bears, the city of Newark, and the Atlantic League, here. At some point I will be able to simply rub my chin, look skywayrd and rattle off the long and convuluted history of the team and the unaffiliated league without looking at any notes, but for the time-being I will need to rely on a steady dose of baseball-reference.com, wikipedia, team webpages and blogs. Just kidding about that last one. Nobody in their right mind is blogging about an Atlantic League ballclub. We'll start today with a history of semi-professional baseball in Newark, and a little bit about the city itself. Later this week, a bit about the Atlantic League, and the modern-day Newark Bears

Look to the Cookie

As MLB's spring training starts in the Grapefruit League of Florida, and the Cactus League of Arizona, the Newark Bears host a spring tradition of their own at the end of March: open tryouts. That's correct, 1 month and 4 days before the first pitch of the season is thrown the Bears will be hosting "talent" from all over the Jersey terrain, fresh faces just out of highschool with a dream of sniffing a cup of coffee in the majors, as well as Men's Softball League MVPs who think they have what it takes to sport the uniform once proudly worn by Yogi Berra, Jose Canseco, and Rickey Henderson (no, Yogi was never an Athletic. They were all once Bears!) See, before the Newark Bears became the dumping ground for has-been-big-name players, looking for one last shot at glory (that's you, Rickey, take a bow) it was an actual affiliated ballclub. Purchased by then-owner of the NY Yankees in 1931, the Newark Indians were made an affiliated ballclub of the soon-to-be most storied franchise in the world. And they were renamed the Bears, presumably for the plethura of ursine species wandering in and out of Newark Penn Station, and down Broad St. Playing at Rupert Stadium (home of the Beer Baron!) the Bears doiminated the AAA International-League for 18 years.

Their co-tenants at Ruppert were the Newark Eagles, one of the better, if lesser-known, Negro League teams. Some famous Eagles included: Larry Doby, first black player to play in the American League, with the Indians; Don Newcombe, who won a Cy Young with the Dodgers; Biz Mackey, one of the leagues best catchers; and SS Ray Dandridge. Some of these men were members of the Newark Eagles team that upset the Kansas City Monarchs in the 1946 Negro World Series. The Monarchs were to the Negro Leagues what the Yankees were to the American League. It goes without saying then that the Monarchs, during their prime, were arguably the best collection of ballplayers playing anywhere on the planet. If I may take a sidenote to make some plugs: should you ever find yourself in Kansas City with 2 hours to kill, make your way to the Negro League Museum a fascinating walk-through which really illuminates the struggles of the league to earn recognition, and of baseball to accept integration. More importantly it shines a light on some of the leagues finer players, whose names we know, but whom we hardly appreciate enough. Pick up Satchel Paige's America in the bookstore (where I happened to meet Lynn Jones and Ron "Poppa Jack" Jackson when they coached with the Red Sox) then head about half a mile down E 18th St to Brooklyn Ave. and get thee some Arthur Bryant's burnt-ends. Back to Newark: where in the late 30's and early 40's the Bears and the Eagles were playing some of the best baseball on the East Coast. But while that decade and a half was, indeed, heady times for both newark baseball and the city, itself, the 1949 sale of the Bears to the Chicago Cubs (and the ensuing relocation to Massachusetts) was a foreboding of tougher times for Newark, both inside it's stadium, and beyond the emptied seats.

Welcome to Hard Times

In 1950 the only remaining ballclub in Newark, the Negro League Eagles, owned by Effa Manley (the first woman ever to own and operate a baseball team) were shipped to Houston. The promise of the underdog Eagles was gone from the city of Newark, as were the joys of watching the young, hungry players on the Bears, before they became tainted by the pinstripes of their major league affiliate. It was a symbolic moment for Newark, and ever since 1949, for very different reason, the city has never really been the same. It isn't just a matter of baseball, and it is equally as absurd as it is idyllic to say that baseball is what made Newark prosperous, and losing the teams to other cities is what made Newark suffer. It's just coincidence, of course, that when the Bears and Eagles were in their prime, showcasing some of the greatest young, gifted white and black talent America had to offer, the city itself was home to a young, gifted white and black community that was thriving, and vivrant. In the years following, Newark has been on a slow-and-then-rapid descent to one of the most dangerous and uninhabitable cities in the country. That too is simply coincidence, but coincidence, sometimes, is difficult to ignore.


In 1967 Ruppert stadium (once a symbol of Newark's prosperity, home to two equally exciting teams--one a Negro League underdog, one a feeder-league affiliate of the soon-to-be world-renowned Yankees)was deliberately demolished. That same year in July, a black cab driver named John Smith was pulled over for illegally passing a double-parked police car. After the officers accused him of resisting arrest they beat him close to death. What ensued were rumors of Smith's death, followed by anger towards a predominantly white police force and a seemingly apathetic white Mayor (Newark's last.) Then Chaos. 23 dead, over 700 injured, nearly 1,500 arrests, and in excess of $10 million of property damage: what we now call the Newark Riots. Then white flight.

Since the rumors of John Smith's death sparked the Newark Riots, rumors have been a big part of the diasappointing history of the city: namely rumors of a renaissance. It seems for as long I can recall, and according to some older than myself, longer than that, Newark has been rumored to be on the brink of a major rebuilding. Wealthy investors become enamored enough with the solid "infrastructure" and gorgeous art-deco architecture to ignore the stigma left by the 1970's aura of desparation. Small groups, predominantly art-centric, have touted the possibilities of the city, but little has ever come of these whispers. In 1998, 50 years after baseball left the city of Newark, the Bears joined the arts community (represented by NJPAC, and like organizations) as the first major entertainment and sports attraction to return to Brick City. During the late 1990's for the first time in 30 years, whites were moving back to Newark. For the first time in the history of the city, whites and blacks were playing and watching baseball together.

Renaissance Men?

Don't get me wrong: a resurgent Utopia Newark is not. It's not a city undergoing rapid socioeconomic integration a la Washington, D.C. or Jersey City. It's not even New Jersey's answer to New Haven, CT. Think Baltimore. The racial tension in the city is still palpable. Recently I attended a party at The Eleven80, a swanky high-rise with its own doormen, screening room, fitness center, and private bowling lanes. On the way home I was waiting on the Path platform with one other guy, a man who introduced himself as Ray, and said he was a rap producer. On the train we got to talking a little bit about Newark. He was clearly interested in what a white kid was doing riding the train from Newark to Journal Square at 3 AM, and we talked a little bit about Eleven80, and the new development around what will be the new NJ Devils arena. He seemed pessimistic about the recent talk of Newark's renaissance. So I asked him about the Bears, figuring maybe he saw some positives, some integration in what was going on at Bears and Eagles Riverfront Stadium. "You ever been to a Bears game?" I asked. "Sure." And I thought that was that, but then he threw in an afterthought: "You can always tell when the Bears are playing or when there's a symphony at NJPAC." I asked what he meant, and he looked at me like I had to be messing with him. "When there's white people on Broad St."

It may sound like an exaggeration, or a cliche, but as of now Newark's biggest hurdle towards an economic renaissance remains its racial tension. I'm not just talking about a black/white issue, either. Part of what has lead to the success of my hometown, Jersey City, over the past 15 years has been a diversification of its population. Different minorities and ethnic groups have populated and reinvigorated different neighborhoods. For instance: I live in a neighborhood, which is predominantly Coptic-American, Indian and Middle Eastern; The Heights section of Jersey City remains predominantly hispanic; Downtown predominantly European, and White, but there has also been an integration of these neighborhoods as people of each ethnic background realize the potential and offerings of their neighboring areas. Jersey City has three nearly-equal populations around 25% of the whole, each: White, Black, Hispanic, with "other race" (namely, Middle-Eastern and Indian) making up 15-20%. Newark on the other hand is almost 55% black, and 30% hispanic, making almost 85% of the cities population, combined. There are no sustainable ethnic neighborhoods, outside of the Ironbound, a Portuguese neighborhood, which, unsurprisingly, is on the cusp of being the area that is first to "gentrify." Now, without arguing the merits or negative aspects of gentrification, it is well known that in cities where urban blight is an issue, the first areas to gentrify tend to be heavily ethnic neighborhoods, of one general make-up or another. These areas, while often not wealthy or heavily developed, already have a neighborhood feel, and the feeling of safety that is harvested by fellow immigrants of common heritage living in close quarters. Outside of the Ironbound this feeling does not exist in Newark. The community feeling, unfortunately, is absent, aside from a few places where it is fabricated: places like NJPAC, and Bears and Eagles Riverfront Stadium.

All this to say that while watching a Newark Bears game inside a stadium harmoniuosly named after its former tenants--one a minor league team of all white players, and one a Negro League team--one is not necessarily seeing Newark in its most honest state. There is a sense of utopia taking place in those confines that doesn't necessarily reflect what has been going on in Newark's politics or socioeconomics for many years. However, recently (and coincidentally, since the Bears return) Newark does seem infused with a restrained hopefulness about its future. Mayor Corey Booker was elected because he promised to clean up Newark's corrupt politics, and tackle issues of crime that have prevented the city from shedding its negative reputation. Development is underway on several blocks surrounding Newark Penn Station and the ironbound, and the hope is that what the Bears and NJPAC started with their return to Newark, in terms of economic resurgence, will be continued with residential and commercial development, particularly the welcoming of New Jersey's NHL franchise, the Devils.


If "reserved hopefulness" best describes the attitude of Newark's citizens, "unabashed pessimism" would be the only words to desribe the Newark Bears' fans attitude towards their team's future. Despite loading their rosters this century with plenty of big names, from Ozzie and Jose Canseco, to Jim Leyritz, and Rickey Henderson, the Bears have only made two post-seasons since their return, and only won the Atlantic League Championship once, in 2002. Since then they have been left out of the playoffs each year. Late last month the Bears own website ran a poll asking how fans expected the Bears to fare under new manager Wayne Krenchicki. There were four options: A. Win the first half of the season, make the playoffs; B. Win the Second Half of the Season, make the playoffs; C. Win the Atlantic League Championship!; D. Miss the playoffs. The OVERWHELMING majority chose D. Within 2 days the poll was replaced by a poll asking which promotion-night fans were most excited about. Options included Seinfeld Night (where one can hope there will be complementary black and white cookies) and Cosmetic Surgery Night! Needless to say, there doesn't seem to be much to look forward to for the Bears fans. At least, not in terms of baseball. Of course the current roster consists of only three players. So maybe they'll get some absurd talent at those open tryouts in March.

Friday, February 16, 2007

Why Baseball Means So Much To Us: Is it the Setting?

I know I said I wouldn't write until next week, but I was trolling around Sons of Sam Horn (what? the season hasn't started yet!) when I came across this discussion thread, which I think really touches on some of the issues that I want to look at closest with this project, specifically, the question that spurred the discussion "Why does baseball mean so much to us?" (By "us," the author means New Englanders, but I am applying it to baseball fans in general...typical Sox fan, thinks we are the only people who love our team this way.) A few things pop out at me from this discussion: Bart Giamatti is quoted in one of the first responses, and first of all, it is a dead-on quote:

It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops

Secondly, it reminds me that I need to read Bart Giamatti a little more. What I am doing here isn't exactly unique. I think it's uncommon for our time, and the minor league stuff is a new twist, but I think fans and writers, even ones who used to be commissioner, have been struggling with what, exactly, is the undefinable thing that makes baseball so important to us. One of the things I think that Giamitti fails to touch upon in this quote, although I can't say for certain he doesn't elsewhere, is the quickness with which the good feelings of baseball can be fleeting from us. Yes, there is a sadness when the season ends (and it does end when we need it most) and there is a joy one the rare occassion that the season ends with a play-off win. But that joy is vacant the next spring when all we have is the immediate forseeable future to hold onto. The win is never enough to satisfy. How else do we explain Yankees fans?



If this discussion doesn't make you salivate for the first pitch of your team's spring training I am not sure what will. I particularly suggest reading the second page items about our obsession with the pastoral. I have always felt, and I hope have reiterated in my first post that one of the biggest parts of baseball is the atmosphere of the stadium, the act of sitting and looking out onto the beautiful field, drenched in rays of sun (sorry, Jake) and passively taking in the game and its setting. Baseball should be inseperable from that ideal surrounding. I believe this is one reason that the level of competition may not effect so much the wonder of the experience I will have taking in this season, even if the Passaic does float by with more than the occassional litter. I think the discussion is worth checking out, especially in the context of understanding the significance of baseball as a sport, regardless of the team. Can one get this satisfaction at Riverfront stadium as easily as, say, Miller Park? Honestly, I couldn't tell you the final scores of the last 2 or 3 games I attended at Fenway, but I could describe for you at the snap of a finger the exact view of Fenway park I had for each game.

This is what I am up against

Articles like this will make it very hard for me to not follow the Sox this season obsessively. My heart started racing when I read this article, and I have only seen this dude pitch in YouTube and during the World Baseball classic. Argghhhhhhh. Gonna power through it. New post on the bears next week.

Monday, February 12, 2007

Leading Off Into The Past


I'd like to believe it is the ideal of baseball that draws me to the game: the way that, essentially, what makes baseball so great is the fact that it has stood the test of time as a competition to the point where, even with all the frills it still boils down to, as Ted Williams said, "hitting a round ball with a round bat, squarely." It is always about a pitcher trying to outsmart and outpower a hitter, who, in turn, is trying to drill the ball out of the park or into a gap, unreachable by the nine fielders. Baseball will forever be about warm summer nights, peanuts and cold beers in the bleachers, the crack of a bat when the hitter catches the ball just so, and the pop of a ball around the infield on a double play. Thats it.

When I was nine I entered a contest at the Baseball Hall of Fame, in which kids 12 and under had to write an essay entitled "what baseball means to me." (I won the contest, which gave me lifetime membership to the HoF...go ahead and pat me on the back!) At the time I wrote about the voice of Richie Ashburn on the radio, unsettling every few seconds the exchange of crickets in the fields by my house. I can still hear the sound of "silence" between Ashburn's calls of the plays, the din of an unsettled crowd, and the high pitch washboard sound of the crickets, back and forth. He had a talent for knowing when to let the game call itself, when it was best to just let the emotion of the crowd--a hushed whisper of a cheer, followed by the crack of the ball against the bat, interrupting into a roar--narrate the game for itself. Palpable doesn't even begin to describe how fresh some of those moments are in my memory. In that essay for the Hall of Fame I talked about the smell of neetsfoot oil in my glove (March first never came and went without the traditional oiling of the glove, and for the first week of the month it was stuffed beneath my pillow reaking up my bed with a kerosene-scent. It was fucking spring!) I talked about my dad winding back and shooting pop-flies into the sky so they seemed like they'd find a cloud to land on and never come down, the site of fenway park the first time I entered it (the first stadium I'd ever seen, besides the embarassment where my dad's Phillies played--Veteran's stadium.) I talked about the smell of fresh-cut grass, and the way the dirt on the infield quickly shaded from tan to brown as the grounds-crew sprayed it down one last time before the game. When we were young baseball was a game of senses: sounds, sights, smells, even the taste of burnt shopping-cart pretzels outside of Yankee Stadium. It was the only game one experienced sound by sound, sight by sight, and smell by smell. For a nine year old kid with the attention span of a gnat, it took all of that stimulation to keep my interest through 3+ hours of what some think is a tedious game. But to me every moment was a new stimulation. There's really no other sport in the world with so many possible outcomes at so many points in the game. There's no comparable moment in other competitions, when a team down to its last out, and losing by 3 can have the bases loaded and their best hitter at the plate, and hope without the least bit of delusion that the game isn't over. It happens all the time. I've seen it with my own eyes, heard it with my own ears. And depending on which side you are rooting for, the taste is sweet as nectar or more bitter than lemons.

When I re-read that little essay a couple years back (I found it as I helped my parents move) I realized that not a thing I had written then was the least bit phony. The way that I felt about baseball was totally pure, totally righteous, and a completely honest investment in what I thought was the most pure thing a kid could be enamored with at nine years old. Things change as you get older. If you asked me now, "does baseball still mean all of those things?" I could say without lying, "it does." I don't still put an oiled glove under my pillow each March, but I could easily pinpoint the smell of oiled leather in any sporting goods store in the country. Of course, I'd have to admit baseball means other things these days, too: it means gluing myself to a television five to six days a week for 3-4 hours during the summer; it means cursing my lungs out at a manager who can't hear me, tossing my cellphone at the nearest wall 5-10 times a season; agonizing in self-pity every time the Sox lose to the Yankees; searching baseball blogs for Sox coverage at work; leaving dinner cold when the Sox leave 3 men stranded in the eighth inning of a meaningless game against Baltimore in May. Quite simply, it means addiction, and everything that goes with it: constant consumption; mood swings; dedication to my addiction over everything and everyone else; bags under my eyes during West Coast Road Trips; constantly thinking about Sox, when I'm not watching the Sox, reading about the Sox, going to see the Sox. You get the point.

Knowing all of this about me, and knowing when she got into this relationship, my wife would have to deal with my mistress 11 months out of the year (I usually don't follow the Sox in December if my Jets are in the play-off hunt, which is a whole different story) she was apoplectic when she found out MLB was selling the rights of the Extra Innings Package to DirecTV (a satellite source which my condo association will not allow.) She knew full well that this left us with three rational choices: break the condo association rules, and suffer the consequences; move out of the condo we bought in November and find a house where we could have satellite; or move to Boston. Imagine her surprise then when she asked me what in the world I was going to do, and I responded with this, "how about I just don't follow the Red Sox this year."

The thing is, I had weighed all those options very seriously. I had even scoured the Century 21 website to see what a place in Southie goes for these days. But in the end, I decided that, like an addict, I am chasing a ghost. I had to give it up. It's not an easy choice to make, and its not one I want to make. But I had become like a dog who keeps getting kicked by his owner, and yet keeps licking the man's palm. I had to draw a line at some point and walk out the door. For me that point was when MLB made a proactive decision to limit the ability of fans like myself from getting access to the product that we have made our master. I thought really hard about what it is I love about baseball and what about baseball I could do without.

What I love: being at a game; enjoying the summer weather; and the competition and spirit of that essence of baseball I described before; the conversations that are carried on at games, either with strangers or with the person whom you take; winning and its joys, losing and its sorrows; the investment in a team and its players that makes you feel like you are a part of their accomplishments, and a part of their suffering; the distraction of the senses that no other sport can even pretend to provide.

What I could do without: the constant discussion of enormous contracts, salary caps, and whether or not the Red Sox are now on a par with the Evil Empire Yankees (yes, they are); the rage of being so deeply invested in a team that their every loss is a personal agony that seriously effects my mood, my appetite, my sleep habits, and quite possibly my sanity; Sox/Yankees games; Steroids talk; Watching Barry Bonds hit HR 756; the annual Manny Tradewinds rants from WEEI; WEEI, for that matter; Whiny Red Sox fans; Obnoxious Yankees fans.


The thing is, what I love about the game--what makes me go back to it time and time again--is that essential factor, that baseball is always baseball. I could watch a Brewers/Pirates game for four hours and find enough artful enjoyment to match a Sox/Yanks game or a playoff game. What I love about baseball is the baseball. I love the game, and the experience of watching it, enjoying it, both for personal pleasures, and for the shared ones. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the statistical analysis, the "rumors and rants," and the endless breakdown of Baseball Tonight, etc...but I just think its ancilliary to the thing I enjoy most: the heart of the game. And that's something I can still get, something I can enjoy without having to follow the Red Sox like a member of a cult. It's something I can get by following practically any team. But there is no way in hell I am cheating on the Red Sox with another MLB team, least of all the Yankees. And I swore off the Mets when I was a teen (they always win in December, but never in August.) The answer seemed to be out there for me: minor league baseball.

So I have decided I can enjoy the aspects of baseball I love the most, without getting involved in the ugliest aspects of the game. It's a test sure. I don't have any misconceptions that the level of competition will even be comparable. I don't doubt that I will follow the Sox in the boxscores; I'll probably even catch a random televised game, here and there. But for at least one summer, I am going to give my allegiance, my daily baseball attention to one team, and one team only: The Newark Bears. I am going to get season tickets (something I have never had before) and follow thier road games via radio (on the internet of course.) I'm going to set up an aero bed for away games and open my windows a crack, and instead of the din of crickets, I will hear the announcers call the plays over the shouts of voices in the street, and honking horns. But it's going to be baseball again, the kind of baseball that meant enough to me to write that essay back when I was nine.

I intend on getting two season tickets. They play 72 home games, and I am going to catch as many as possible, with as many people as possible. Some games I will attend with my father, or maybe I can even drag my brother to a few. Some I will attend with my wife. Some I will attend with friends, others with an elderly neighbor of mine (though he'd despise that description) who doesn't follow Major League Baseball anymore, as he's become disenchanted with the product. I'm even going to get in touch with the Newark Mayor's office, see if I can get somebody there to take in a game. I'm shooting off an email to Amiri Baraka, as well. The idea is going to be to sort of examine the way that we interact around the game of baseball. See what the Bears, and what baseball in general means to the city of Newark, and to its people, but even in a broader sense, what kind of bonding we do around the game of baseball. Examine closer why the game has become the great American pastime that it is. What better place to do that than in a minor league stadium, among fans who are there for baseball at its most unadulterated.

I'm not sure what will come out of all of this. Ideally it will lead to an interesting blog for friends and family to follow for a summer. I hope it will lead to a few articles as well. But most importantly it is going to lead to a hell of alot of memories, and they are all going to center around the beautiful game of baseball. At the end, I think I'll take a trip up to Cooperstown and use that lifetime pass for the first time in about 10 years. Reintroduce myself to the major leagues the right way: starting in the past.

On Deck: A little bit about the Atlantic League, and some history of The Newark Bears