Cagle World

In Congress, an inverse relationship exists between the numbers of border crossers and a discussion about how millions of new migrants will be cared for. The greater the numbers, the less is said about open borders and the resultant negative long-term population consequences.

The latest border report indicates that immigration agents stopped about 7,100 worldwide migrants each day during a recent week, up from February’s daily 6,800 average. Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz said the total includes 1,500 Cubans, well more than double the daily average from February. Because of diplomatic challenges and the expense of sending them home, Cubans are automatically released into the interior to pursue asylum claims.

In the unlikely event that the asylum requests are denied, the Cubans will remain anyway – these days, hardly anyone is expelled. Department of Homeland Security officials predict that fiscal 2022 migration totals will surpass last year’s 2 million, plus an estimated 1,000-a-day “gotaways.” Once Title 42 is eliminated, anticipated within days, the illegal alien surge will intensify because agents won’t be allowed to return migrants to Mexico based on COVID-19 grounds.

President Biden and those who advise him have privately agreed – they wouldn’t dare make a public announcement – that open borders are okay with them. In this era of shortages in oil and affordable housing and of supply chain disruptions causing product shortages everywhere, what will happens next to the migrants and to the U.S. environment after they settle? Limits to population growth exist, but are a taboo subject in Congress. Remember also that immigrants have multiplier factors like chain migration and increasing family size or starting new family units that must eventually be provided for.

Consider the most fundamental natural resource need that everyone requires: water, and the nationwide dire shortage of it. The National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, in partnership with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has created the U.S. Drought Monitor that maps nationwide drought conditions and maintains historical drought records. Ranked according to drought severity, the top seven states include four that are primary migrant destinations: Arizona, New Mexico, California and Texas, the arrival point for thousands of migrants.

As of March 21, 2022, 90 percent of Texas is experiencing drought conditions, with High Plains residents suffering from extreme drought. Forecasters warn that drought conditions could worsen, and some predict the possibility of unprecedented 10-year megadroughts that will bring hotter, drier and more extreme weather than normally seen.

The University of Texas and its Environmental Institute analyzed the state’s water crisis and the probability of it expanding. Identified as one of the major contributors to water shortage was population growth. Texas’ population will increase from today’s 29.5 million people to 51 million by 2070, with the majority residing in urban areas. Inarguably, the more people added to Texas’ population, the more difficult it becomes to overcome water shortage challenges.

The expected Texas population increase of 21 million people in less than 50 years is part of the U.S. total population growth of 70 million, to 404 million, during the same half decade. All will be daily consumers of water in multiple ways.

Those calling for increased immigration forget that growth is finite. Sir David Attenborough, the natural history filmmaker and biologist who advocated halving immigration into the United Kingdom to preserve as much of the landscape as possible once said, “I’ve never seen a problem that wouldn’t be easier to solve with fewer people, or harder, and ultimately impossible, with more.”

Attenborough could have mentioned that water supply is an impossible-to-solve problem for any area when there are no limits to population growth.

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Copyright 2022 Joe Guzzardi, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Joe Guzzardi is a Progressives for Immigration Reform analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at [email protected].

When journalists sit down to write, they can choose between two compelling storylines – Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine, or the Third World’s incursion into sovereign America.

Journalists have reported on the Russia-Ukraine war exhaustively in print and over the air. Even though the Southwest border has been invaded for the same 24/7 period for more than a year by illegal aliens from 150 countries, the mainstream media is stone-cold silent when headlines should be blaring.

Between June 2020 and June 2021, Border Patrol agents took into custody Venezuelans, Haitians, Brazilians and Cubans, with total numbers significantly up from 2020. Over the last nine months, the number of migrants from Ecuador was up five times from the prior comparable period. Migrants whose nationality could not be determined doubled from the prior year to 37,000.

About 2 million illegal aliens crossed into the U.S. in 2021, and another 2 million are predicted to arrive before fiscal year-end 2022. Yet the number of words written about the inevitable demographic and socioeconomic changes the invasion will bring to the U.S. could, figuratively, fit on a pin’s head.

In the world’s history, the alien-perpetrated border incursion is unprecedented. Never before has an independent nation as powerful as the U.S. purposely thrown open its doors to all comers. Several words might explain the establishment media’s purposeful neglect – uninterested, indifferent or apathetic. The best word, however, is corrupt.

Despite the flowery language about fairness, balance and their commitment to principled journalism, as well as the highest ethical standards found on the websites of the Society of Professional Journalists and the American Society of News Editors, the open borders story and the dramatic changes it will surely bring to America remain largely unreported.

It’s no surprise that trust in the media is near an all-time low. A Gallup survey to determine Americans’ opinions about the media found that just 7 percent of adults said they have “a great deal” and only 29 percent responded that they have “a fair amount” of trust and confidence in newspapers, television and radio news reporting.

Despite the establishment media’s effort to obscure the U.S.-Mexico border crisis, a Harvard/Harris poll taken in June found that an overwhelming 80 percent of Americans believe that illegal immigration is a serious issue that needs more attention than it’s getting from President Joe Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris, the anointed border czar. Moreover, 68 percent said that Biden’s White House is sending migrants welcoming signals that encourage illegal immigration.

Dishonest journalism and White House betrayal merged when the media ignored a huge Department of Homeland Security story that’s directly tied to public safety. Every year, DHS releases data that summarizes the numbers of illegal aliens arrested and deported. But this year, the congressionally mandated report was delayed weeks beyond its normal issuance date.

Little wonder that the administration wanted to conceal its contents. The report showed that since fiscal year 2019, Biden has crippled interior immigration enforcement. Illegal alien arrests dropped nearly 50 percent, and deportations were slashed by 78 percent. Detainers, official requests to state and local authorities to cooperate in turning over deportable migrants to ICE, fell dramatically, from 122,233 in 2020 to 65,940.

From October 2020 to September 2021, of the estimated 12-25 million illegal immigrants in the nation, only slightly more than 74,000 were arrested, and only 60,000 deported. Many arrests and deportations occurred during the former administration’s final months which means Biden’s arrest totals were lower than the DHS report reflected. Immigration analysts said that the drops in arrests and in criminal deportations means that tens of thousands more dangerous people are at large in American communities, some far from their Southwest border point of entry.

Jon Feere, former Immigration and Customs official and the current Center for Immigration Studies Director of Investigations, noted that the DHS data set omitted several valuable categories such as facts related to family units and unaccompanied minors, criminal charges and convictions against illegal aliens, and aliens’ country of origin – more coverup that’s intended to deceive an unsuspecting public that Biden’s immigration practices serve the nation’s best interests.

The White House and the media, working in tandem and in secret, are doing their level best to destroy sovereign America. So far, they’re doing a job they’re proud of, but worrisome to Americans.

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Copyright 2022 Joe Guzzardi, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Joe Guzzardi is a Progressives for Immigration Reform analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at [email protected].

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, I set out to determine the best-ever Irish baseball players. The task was more challenging than I imagined, but also more rewarding. Reviewing the Irish baseball greats and their stellar diamond accomplishments was a welcome diversion from the troubled world around us.

Early on, I realized that identifying a single best-ever Irish player is impossible. I broke the Irish greats into four groups: best hitter, best pitcher, best manager and most influential – the player responsible for creating a baseball buzz that brought droves of new, but still curious, late 19th century fans to the ballpark.

Irish players, mostly Irish-Americans, have been an integral part of the American baseball scene since the post-Civil War era, when the sport enjoyed its first popularity surge. By the mid-1880s, just after the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs was formed, players could earn $10,000 a year at a time when the average annual income was $800. Understandably, good athletes were drawn to baseball. Like Italian and Eastern European immigrants, the Irish knew that when they played baseball, they were taking steps toward becoming full-fledged Americans.

Best Irish batsman is Cleveland-born “Big” Ed Delahanty. The eldest of five MLB brothers, Big Ed played most of his career, 1888-1903, with the Philadelphia Quakers, the Phillies, the Cleveland Infants and the Washington Senators. During his 16-year career, Big Ed hit .400 or better three times, and ended up with a .346 career average, the fifth best in baseball history, a .411 on-base percentage, and a .505 slugging average. Delahanty was an excellent right fielder with a rifle arm.

Toward his career’s end, Delahanty’s wife became gravely ill; he lost money at the race track, and he went on extended drinking binges. On July 2, 1903, riding a train across the International Railway Bridge over the Niagara River, Delahanty abruptly left the train, stumbled onto the bridge, fell into the river and drowned. Some speculate that Big Ed committed suicide, others claim he was pushed by an irate night watchman with whom he’d scuffled. The circumstances surrounding Big Ed’s death have never been resolved.

Best Irish mounds man is Tony “the Count” Mullane. The affable, County Cork-born pitcher was a well-known rake and a skilled boxer, as well as a competitive ice and roller skater. During his 13-year career from 1881-1894, mostly with the Cincinnati Red Stockings, Mullane won 30 or more games in five consecutive seasons. In 1884, the height of his career, the Boston Herald wrote about Mullane that he’s “a most effective pitcher; his delivery is low and his command of the ball wonderful. He pitches with left or right arm equally well.” The ambidextrous Mullane racked up 284 career wins.

Best Irish Manager: No list of Irish greats is complete without Troy, NY’s John J. McGraw. McGraw could have appeared as a player with his .344 career batting average and .466 on base percentage. But Mc Graw is most often remembered as the New York Giants manager who, during his 30 years at the helm, led his team to three World Series crowns.

“In Tales from the Deadball Era,” Mark Halfon wrote that McGraw was an argumentative, profane, belligerent manager who “took no prisoners in a battle for baseball supremacy. Opposing clubs had to prepare for any eventuality when they faced him. The Reds, for example, worried that he [Mc Graw] contaminated their drinking water. McGraw may not have tainted the water, but it was not beneath him,” Halfon concluded.

As outstanding as Delahanty, Mullane and McGraw’s contributions were, they pale compared to another Troy-native, Mike “King” Kelly. King was baseball’s first 15-year-old player, first matinee idol, first $10,000 earner, first to write his own autobiography – “Play Ball, Stories from the Ball Field” – first to have a song written about him – “Slide Kelly Slide” – and the first catcher to wear a glove and chest protector. Kelly, because of his ability and charisma, changed baseball from a simple, pastoral game into America’s most popular sport.

In his biography about Kelly, “Slide Kelly Slide,” Marty Appel wrote, “There was never a better or more brilliant player. Colorful beyond description, he was the light and the life of the game. … He was one of the quickest thinkers that ever took a signal. He originated more trick plays than all players put together.… As a drawing card, he was the greatest of his time. Fandom around the circuit always welcomed the Chicago White Stockings, with the great [Cap] Anson and his lieutenant, King Kelly.”

Between 1878 and 1891, Kelly played with eight teams, six of which won National League titles. During that period, Kelly won two batting titles and led the league in runs scored three times. Like Delahanty, however, Kelly loved to gamble, spent money recklessly and couldn’t stay out of saloons. King Kelly, sometimes called, “The Only Kelly” died at age 36 of pneumonia.

Delahanty, Mullane, McGraw and Kelly, great Irish players all, revered by a growing legion of early 20th century baseball bugs, but whose names time has obscured, deserve recognition on St. Patrick’s Day.

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Copyright 2022 Joe Guzzardi, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research and Internet Baseball Writers’ Association member. Contact him at [email protected].

Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine has brought devastation or death to hundreds of thousands of people.

Whenever and however the brutal war ends, millions of Ukrainians will be displaced, as well as Russians vocally opposed to the war who fear President Vladimir Putin’s retaliation. Between the invasion’s beginning and March 6, more than 13,000 anti-war protesters were arrested. Russia’s crackdown on dissenters includes blocking access to Facebook and Twitter which could disseminate anti-war news that Putin wants hushed up. In early March, Putin signed legislation under which people suspected of spreading “fake news” about Russian forces could face up to 15 years in prison.

The U.N. Refugee agency reported that 2 million Ukrainians have fled their country, mostly to Moldova, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. But the news agency Reuters found that, at the U.S.-Mexico border, a growing number of Russian and Ukrainian nationals have been encountered. In Mexico, the migrants buy “throwaway” vehicles and drive across the border into the United States to seek asylum. Assuming the Russian invasion continues, tens of thousands more displaced Eastern Europeans could eventually reach the U.S. to make their asylum claims.

Illegal entry attempts could increase as visas become increasingly difficult to obtain. A Miami immigration lawyer fluent in Russian, Andrey Plaksin, said he is overwhelmed with calls and emails inquiring about the visa process and their availability. One option that might help Eastern Europeans get to the U.S. would be if they applied for a nonimmigrant tourist or work visa, assuming they could find a U.S. consular post open and accepting appointments.

Once inside the U.S., they would face minimal chance of deportation. Almost immediately after the invasion began, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas granted Ukrainians living in the U.S. before March 1 temporary protected status for 18 months, protecting them from deportation for that period. Historically, TPS is quasi-automatically rolled over in 18-month increments for periods as long as two decades.

By an overwhelming margin, Americans and Congress wants to help Ukrainian citizens and other countries that Putin may be determined to destroy. Eight in ten voters are following the Ukraine crisis closely, and 70 percent favor strong sanctions against Russia.

But with the Russia-Ukraine war coming just weeks after the U.S. airlift that took Afghan nationals to overseas U.S. military bases and the American homeland, and with the illegal immigration invasion ongoing, many question how the country can environmentally sustain itself.

Projecting Biden’s first year immigration totals over his four-year term – about 2 million illegal immigrants, 650,000 “got aways,” 1 million-plus lawful permanent residents and tens of thousands of Afghan evacuees – and the U.S. will have about 8 million illegal immigrants that Customs and Border Protection processed, and roughly 2.5 million “got aways” now in the interior, safe from deportation. The Afghan resettlement is over, but a Ukrainian surge could surpass those numbers.

To the existing totals, remember that demographers must include the roughly 3.1 family members that lawfully present immigrants, including refugees/asylees, will petition to be admitted to the country, as well as the families that they’ll start or add to once in the U.S.

Despite the Biden administration’s ballyhoo about a future green America, he’s ignored the huge carbon footprint that thousands of new immigrants will make as housing, roads, schools and hospitals are built to accommodate the needs of them and their offspring.

Fifty years ago, the Rockefeller Commission Report, “Population and the American Future,” was submitted to Congress. The report urged population stabilization at the 1972 level, 211 million. Instead, population has soared to the current 334 million, and is projected to reach about 400 million by mid-century. Be mindful that these totals are pre-Biden’s expansive open borders and resettlement policies.

Fewer people would relieve, at least in part, many of America’s social ailments, including most obviously sprawl and overcrowding. Yet stable population’s obvious benefits have escaped every presidential administration, Republican and Democrat, since Richard Nixon. A half-century of disregard for population growth has had no noticeable benefits for most Americans. For the donor class elite, however, growth is good – for them.

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Copyright 2022 Joe Guzzardi, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Joe Guzzardi is a Progressives for Immigration Reform analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at [email protected].

Disgusted and indignant fans have a message for near-universally detested MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, the league’s billionaire owners, and its pampered, overpaid players – Take your overpriced tickets, tasteless hot dogs, and warm, flat beer and stuff them.

The commissioner, owners, union and players have grievously misjudged the baseball nation’s post-pandemic, inflation-ravaged, Ukraine war-anxious mood. The last thing baseball bugs want to hear is well-heeled, privileged elitists carping about their lot and the perceived injustices they’re suffering.

The whiners have forgotten that fans have plenty of baseball options, all better than getting fleeced and bored stiff at the old ball park, where game time average over 3 hours.

High school, junior college and NCAA college games are underway. Parking at some venues is free, and the proceeds from concessions go right back to the athletic department to help buy equipment and defray travel expenses, not to further enrich billionaires.

Junior college provides a launching pad for players who aspire to Division 1 and represents an opportunity for them to get bigger, stronger, better and catch the attention of scouts. Among the JUCOS who became MLB superstars are Jackie Robinson, Albert Pujols, Kirby Puckett, Curt Schilling, Mike Piazza, Jorge Posada and Bryce Harper.

At D-1 baseball, the skill level is high. Last weekend, No. 1 ranked Texas and UCLA, Tennessee, Louisiana State and Oklahoma State – all major programs – played in the nationally televised Shriners Children’s College Classic. The teams played nine inning doubleheaders. The Longhorns have a rich history that sent Roger Clemens, Brandon Belt, Huston Street and others to the bigs. The Bruins have placed 28 UCLANs in the Big Show, including standouts Brandon Crawford, Gerrit Cole and Trevor Bauer.

Take today’s young players out of their collegiate uniforms and put them in MLB jerseys, and few fans would notice any drop off in the quality of play. Pitchers throw 90 mph-plus, the fielders make wide-ranging plays, and batters hit with power.

At the collegiate level, coaches stress fundamental baseball, something sorely lacking in the big leagues. University of Southern California’s late, legendary coach Rod Dedeaux’s guiding philosophy: “Never make the same mistake once.” Dedeaux’s students listened. During his 45 years as USC coach from 1942 to 1986, Dedeaux’s teams won 11 CWS titles, including five in a row. Many Trojans went on to stellar MLB careers: Tom Seaver, Randy Johnson, Mark McGwire, Dave Kingman and Fred Lynn.

For televised baseball, viewers have lots of offerings. ESPN will air the top NCAA teams between now and June 27, the date the College World Series ends. If MLB isn’t back in action for the summer months, then fans can check out the 76 Independent League teams. The season ticket package for the Independent League Chicago Dogs is a better value than a single seat at the Cubs’ Wrigley Field, average ticket price $83.

The casual, fun times that Independent League baseball offers are available from coast to coast: the Bakersfield Train Robbers, the Kansas City Monarchs, the Milwaukee Milkmen and the New York Boulders. Some teams offer “kids eat free” games, an anathema to MLB owners who charge eye-popping prices for food and beverages. True fans know that the game is the thing, not the guys who play it.

Negotiations between the owners and the players are going poorly. They resent and distrust each other. Even though they sign the checks, the owners can’t believe the salaries players earn. Money flows so freely in baseball that the Washington Nationals’ 24-year-old outfielder Juan Soto rejected a $350 million, 13-year extension. Soto’s reasoning: when he becomes a free agent after the 2024 season, he anticipates he can ink a $500 million deal.

No one knows when the ugly, take-no-prisoners negotiations will end. The only certainty is that baseball, already losing fans to professional football, basketball and soccer, has sustained another black eye, something it can ill-afford. The old-fashioned, field of dreams romantic vision of baseball as the national pastime, with fathers and sons playing backyard catch, is gone forever. In its place stands the image of nasty haggling over whether players’ minimum annual salaries can reach $755,000 or whether they’ll have to settle for the owners’ $640,000 offer.

Bob Leach, who played for Dedeaux on the Trojans’ 1974-1976 teams wrote this about his coach: “Most of us players thought we were in training to become major leaguers. In reality, we were all serving an internship for life. In addition to making great baseball teams, he was more importantly passing on his wisdom and experience so that we could succeed in any setting.”

Too bad that Dedeaux’s understanding of the human condition hasn’t reached the majors.

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Copyright 2022 Joe Guzzardi, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research and Internet Baseball Writers’ Association member. Contact him at [email protected].

Ukrainians’ fate in the country’s Russia-perpetrated war is unclear.

At first thought to be overwhelmed by the Russian invasion, everyday Ukrainians without military experience have chosen not to flee their country, but have elected instead to remain and volunteer to defend their sovereignty. Ukrainian defense minister Oleksii Reznikov said that 25,000 guns have been handed over to territorial defense members in the Kyiv region alone. In Kyiv’s streets, President Volodymyr Zelensky, surrounded by his key staff members, vowed to defend Ukrainian independence.

Men between the ages of 18 and 60 must stay to fight. A Ukrainian man told a reporter that people have swapped their keyboards and pencils for guns. Women in Dnipro, Ukraine’s fourth largest city with a population of 1 million, spent the weekend making Molotov cocktails. The Biden administration urged Zelensky to leave Kyiv and offered to evacuate him, but he scoffed at the request. Zelensky said, “I need ammunition, not a ride,” as he vowed to fight with other Ukrainians. Taken together, these are all signs that Ukraine’s residents and its leadership will mount fierce resistance to the invading Russians.

Back in the U.S., Richard Durbin, (D-Ill.), the U.S. Senate’s second highest ranking Democrat, visited Chicago’s Ukrainian Culture Center to show his support for the Zelensky government and to criticize Putin for defying world order and Russian aggression “against an innocent nation like Ukraine.”

Members of the Senate and the Biden administration met to discuss sending humanitarian aid to Ukraine and Poland, which has welcomed refugees, said Durbin, who co-chairs with Ohio Republican Rob Portman the Senate Ukraine Caucus. The meeting resulted in sanctions that will target Russian banks, oligarchs and high-tech sectors.

Biden promised that the U.S. will impose export controls and sanction oligarchs, and most importantly, the U.S. Treasury will take what it called “unprecedented action” against Russia’s two largest financial institutions, Public Joint Stock Company Sberbank of Russia (Sberbank)and VTB Bank Public Joint Stock Company (VTB Bank),” measures “drastically altering their fundamental ability to operate.”

Shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Biden came under pressure from Durbin and others to grant Temporary Protected Status for the 1 million Ukrainian citizens living in the U.S. Under the program, created as part of the Immigration Act of 1990, foreign nationals can remain in the event of a military uprising or natural disaster, regardless of their immigration status, and would receive lifetime valid work permits.

Although the Russian invasion is an appropriate example, the program has repeatedly proven permanent, not temporary. The current list of 12 countries with Temporary Protected Status includes Sudan, effective 1997, and El Salvador, effective 2001. The Biden administration added Venezuela and Burma to bring the total from ten to 12.

The Council on National Security and Immigration and the Catholic Legal Immigration Network Refugee endorsed Durbin’s suggestion, and the Lutheran Immigration Refugee Service has asked the Biden administration “to prepare for this new humanitarian emergency [Ukraine].”

The latest Associated Press-NORC poll reveals that just 26 percent of Americans want the U.S. to have a “major role” in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, while an overwhelming 72 percent said the U.S. should have a “minor role” or “no role” at all. The poll findings could be attributed to citizens still processing the cataclysmic fallout from the Afghanistan debacle that includes resettling about 150,000 of that country’s refugees during the last several months.

Depending on how long the conflict lasts, Ukrainian refugees could, the United Nation predicts, exceed 5 million. Zelensky said that he’s unconvinced that negotiations between the two countries, announced late Sunday, will be successful. Western nations should agree to resettle displaced Ukrainians as close to their native land as possible so that when peace returns, they can easily go home – the only place they want to live.

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Copyright 2022 Joe Guzzardi, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Joe Guzzardi is a Progressives for Immigration Reform analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at [email protected].

Even casual baseball fans know that Jackie Robinson became Major League Baseball’s first black player, that he had a stellar career with the Brooklyn Dodgers that included Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player awards.

But Robinson’s life before and after Brooklyn was also rewarding. Too few people remember Robinson’s collegiate achievements and his civil rights activism.

Last year, Major League Baseball incorporated the statistics and history of Negro League Baseball into its own. Blacks, Latin Americans and Caribbeans played baseball long before 1920, the year that the Negro League was formed. The league lasted until 1948 when black fans could watch their favorites as they too slowly, but eventually, were called up to play for the then 16 big league teams.

Professional football, not baseball, was Robinson’s first experience as a paid athlete. Robinson excelled at football as a UCLA undergraduate. While at UCLA, Robinson became the first athlete of any race to win varsity letters in football, baseball, basketball and track. At age 16, Robinson won the Junior Boy’s Single’s title in the annual Pacific Coast Negro Tennis Tournament.

In 1939 and 1940, Robinson led the nation in punt return average, and had a career 18.8 yards per return. As a senior in 1940, Robinson led UCLA in rushing, passing, total offense, scoring and punt returns. On the basketball team, Robinson led the Pacific Coast Conference Southern Division in scoring during the 1940 and 1941 seasons. The only season that Robinson played baseball for the Bruins, he hit .097, but that same year won the NCAA broad jumping title. Sports reporters agreed that Robinson was the best amateur athlete in Southern California.

After Robinson left UCLA, he became a professional football player. In 1941, Robinson played semi-professional football for the racially integrated Honolulu Bears. In his first play as a professional, Robinson scored on a 41-yard run. After the Bears’ short season, he joined his hometown Pacific Coast Football League’s Los Angeles Bulldogs, an integrated team.

When the U.S. Army drafted Robinson in 1942, his football career was interrupted until his 1944 honorable discharge. In Robinson’s first game back after his discharge, he threw two touchdown passes. A week later he rushed for 101 yards on only eight carries in a victory over the Hollywood Wolves. By 1945, however, baseball beckoned. Playing for the Negro League’s Kansas City Monarchs, Robinson batted .387 and appeared in the 1945 Negro League All-Star Game where he caught the attention of Brooklyn Dodgers President and General Manager Branch Rickey.

At age 28, Robinson started at first base on April 15, 1947, a historic moment. Robinson’s baseball achievements, achieved even though he endured taunts and spiteful comments, are numerous. One that is unlikely to be topped is his record 19 home plate steals, shared with the St. Louis Cardinals’ Frankie Frisch. At age 35 in 1954, Robinson became the first National Leaguer to steal his way around the bases since 1928, and a year later he became one of only 12 men to steal home in the World Series.

After his 1958 trade to the rival New York Giants, Robinson retired to become Chock Full o’Nuts Vice President of personnel, and the Freedom National Bank board chairman, an institution that provided loans to minorities that establishment banks ignored. By 1960 and through 1968, Robinson was widely considered the most influential black Republican in the country.

In his essay “Jackie Robinson, Republican,” Jeff English wrote that in the 1960 presidential election, Robinson supported Vice President Richard Nixon over then-Senator John K. Kennedy who had voted against the 1957 Civil Rights Act. Robinson’s support was short-lived, however. When Nixon refused to call for Rev. Martin Luther King’s release from an Atlanta jail, Robinson said he “doesn’t deserve to win.” King, along with 51 others, had been arrested for organizing a sit-in at a department store lunch counter.

Although he always denied it, Robinson may have been the first insulin-dependent diabetic to play major-league baseball, despite his claim that the disease hadn’t been diagnosed while he was active. Ravaged by diabetes, Robinson suffered a fatal heart attack in his Stamford, Conn., home on October 24, 1972. On the 50th anniversary of Robinson’s 1947 debut, MLB permanently retired number 42 for all players.

Robinson and Babe Ruth are baseball’s most influential players. Ruth took baseball from the Dead Ball era to a power game. Robinson paved the way for countless black baseball stars like Willie Mays, Hank Aaron and Roberto Clemente.

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Copyright 2022 Joe Guzzardi, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research and Internet Baseball Writers’ Association member. Contact him at [email protected].

Two sure signs that the 2022 mid-term campaigning has begun: candidates’ television spots are bombarding viewers, and the Capitol Hill rumor mill is grinding away.

One of the most intriguing bits of gossip is that New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez may challenge Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer this year, or wait until 2024 to take on the more vulnerable, ineffective Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.

Ocasio-Cortez versus Schumer would present a fascinating match up, a media dream come true, with the upstart second-term representative having little to lose. First, consider that Ocasio-Cortez has experience in toppling the Democratic establishment. In the 2018 primary, Ocasio-Cortez drubbed 20-year congressional veteran and incumbent Joe Crowley, then the House Democratic Caucus chairman, the fourth ranking Democrat and a favorite to become Speaker.

Ocasio-Cortez, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, won 57 percent of the vote. Her winning campaign four years ago could foreshadow trouble for Schumer as the message she’d send to New Yorkers would highlight the differences between the incumbent and her. Ocasio-Cortez repeatedly said that upset wins like hers represent what happens when people vote… “they had the money, we had people.”

For Ocasio-Cortez, Schumer represents an inviting target, should she choose to seek the Senate. In 2018, she ran as a woman, a young person, a working-class champion, a fresh face, an unabashed liberal and a person of color. Schumer is male, old, elitist and white. Along the campaign trail, Ocasio-Cortez piled up endorsements from national progressive groups that would elude Schumer.

Few in the Senate are more establishment than Schumer, best friend to Wall Street and Silicon Valley. Schumer’s only jobs since he graduated from Harvard Law School have been in government, and he’s become a powerful, but overly familiar, not particularly admired, boring, dour, staid figure in New York politics for nearly 50 years. First in the State Assembly in 1975, the U.S. House from 1981 to 1999, and the U.S. Senate from 1999 through today, Schumer is yesterday’s news.

On Election Day 2022, Schumer will be two weeks shy of 72, while Ocasio-Cortez will be 33. The woke vote, the 5 million or so New Yorkers between the ages of 18 to 34, and the fed-up vote would go overwhelmingly to Ocasio-Cortez who knows how to reach younger people through social media and her 13 million Twitter followers.

Schumer’s approval ratings are the second lowest of his senate career, with only 41 percent of his constituents giving him an “excellent” or “good” score, and 29 percent rating him as “poor.” The polling results have more bad news for Schumer. Among Ocasio-Cortez’s key youthful voters, 58 percent said Schumer was doing a “poor” or, at best, “fair” job.

The next move is Ocasio-Cortez’s. She’s been coy about her intentions, and when questioned directly about challenging Schumer, she’s responded evasively. Ocasio-Cortez’s pat answer is that she hasn’t considered a Senate run, but she hasn’t ruled it out either. “We shall see” is her favorite dodge.

Much of Ocasio-Cortez’s future may depend on Schumer’s ability to bring home President Biden’s major legislative agenda, currently badly stalled. Whether Schumer retains his seat, or Ocasio-Cortez upends him, the legislative vote tally will be unchanged. Both are reliably left, and can be counted on to vote straight progressive on social issues.

Ocasio-Cortez’s emergence into the national spotlight and her visibility as a viable U.S. Senate candidate show how dramatically New York’s politics have shifted in just two and a half decades. Within living memory, Republican Gov. George Pataki served three consecutive terms, 1995 to 2006, and defeated incumbent Democrat Mario Cuomo to win his first gubernatorial race. Conservative Sen. Alfonse D’Amato preceded Schumer.

Gillibrand, when she served in the U.S. House from 2006 to 2008, was a blue dog Democrat who opposed a 2007 state-level proposal to issue driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants and voted for legislation that would withhold federal funds from sanctuary cities harboring illegal aliens. Once the junior senator came under Schumer’s wing, however, she voted the straight Democratic party line on immigration.

Ocasio-Cortez covets higher political office and has demonstrated the wherewithal to achieve her goals. Some analysts speculate that Ocasio-Cortez will skip a Senate run, and make a presidential bid in 2024. A look at the 24 failed 2020 Democratic candidates makes her run appear possible, if not probable.

In politics, the nine months between today and November 8 are an eternity. Among other Democratic failures on crime, education, affordable housing and COVID-19, New York voters may have grown tired of illegal aliens, including underage migrants, being flown, under cover of darkness, from the Southwest border into their state where they will become taxpayers’ burdens.

A change is coming to New York’s Senate representation. The question that will face voters is whether the change will represent an improvement in their lives or another step backward toward full-on California status.

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Copyright 2022 Joe Guzzardi, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Joe Guzzardi is a Progressives for Immigration Reform analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at [email protected].

Nothing stops the push by Congress for more immigration – not 9/11, not the mortgage meltdown and Wall Street crisis, not dismal Bureau of Labor Statistics job reports and not COVID-19.

Despite the fact that about 1 million new lawful permanent residents get work authorization each year, about 750,000 guest workers arrive annually in a typical year and dozens of types of nonimmigrant visas include employment permission, Congress is never satisfied.

Congress insists, predictably and tediously, that without more foreign-born labor, the economy will collapse and small businesses will vanish. These baseless claims, consistently proven false, are repeated year after year after year.

Example: In 2017, mostly at the horse racing industry’s behest, the Senate and House both introduced bills that predicted without more H-2B nonagricultural visas, horse racing might become extinct. But, four years later, the Kentucky Derby and smaller races at other nationwide tracks continue to draw large, revenue-generating crowds.

Another example: Last year, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), an immigration lawyer and chair of the House Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship, introduced a bill that would create a new temporary visa for founders of start-up ventures. In her press release, Lofgren said that more immigration leads to more American jobs, an often-made, but misleading claim.

Although Lofgren’s bill went nowhere, Silicon Valley recorded record profits in 2021, and The New York Times predicted that titans Google, Apple, Microsoft and other tech giants will be rolling in dough for years to come. From its July 2021 story: “The combined stock market valuation of Apple, Alphabet, Nvidia, Tesla, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook increased by about 70 percent to more than $10 trillion. That is roughly the size of the entire U.S. stock market in 2002. Apple alone has enough cash in its coffers to give $600 to every person in the United States.”

The latest assault on American workers is an immigration train wreck coyly called the America COMPETES Act of 2022. Boiled down to the bill’s most harmful elements, the America COMPETES Act would:

1. Create a nonimmigrant visa program for foreign investors of start-ups and entrepreneurs, their families and so-called but undefined essential foreign workers who work for them, also allowing their family members to receive work permits.

2. Create a one-year path to an unlimited number of Green Cards for any visa holder who meets certain investment and ownership stake requirements.

3. Create an unlimited number of Green Cards for foreign citizens who hold a doctoral degree from a U.S. institution of higher learning or an equivalent degree from a foreign university.

4. Create a five-year program that creates 5,000 Special Immigrant Visas yearly for Hong Kong residents, amounting to an additional 25,000 Green Cards over the five-year period.

5. Authorize an unlimited refugee/asylee program for certain Hong Kong residents.

6. Change existing law to treat Hong Kong as a separate state from China in determining per-country limits for existing Green Card categories.

7. Grant Temporary Protected Status with work permission for Hong Kong residents currently in the U.S., regardless of their existing immigration status which may include unlawfully present status.

Under the guise of promoting American innovation, the act’s hodgepodge of vague language makes almost anything possible. One thing is certain – the America COMPETES Act will massively increase legal immigration, flood the labor market, make job searches for Americans in all sectors more difficult, and have an adverse effect on recent U.S. college graduates hoping to begin their careers.

The bill intentionally harms U.S. citizens, but will be a bonanza for arriving foreign nationals, employers addicted to cheap labor and Silicon Valley multimillionaires. No greater gap exists between voters and Congress than on immigration policy.

The thoroughly awful, destructive America COMPETES Act is one of the most powerful examples of why the immigration chasm is so wide.

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Copyright 2022 Joe Guzzardi, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Joe Guzzardi is a Progressives for Immigration Reform analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at [email protected].

More than 80 years ago, 17-year-old lefty sidewinder and distaff Jackie Mitchell struck out two of baseball’s most powerful sluggers – Yankees legends Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.

Historians rank Ruth and Gehrig as baseball’s most fearsome back-to-back slugging tandem. On April 2, 1931, the impossible-to-believe feat, a teenage girl whiffing the two home run bashers, happened in front of 4,000 incredulous fans. The following day, The New York Times in its headline story “Ruth and Gehrig Struck Out by Girl Pitcher” confirmed the accomplishment of Mitchell from the minor league Chattanooga Lookouts.

Eight decades later and on National Girls and Women in Sports Day, the time has again come to determine whether Ruth and Gehrig were part of a hoax that the Lookouts owner and notorious prankster Joe Engel arranged — he had once traded a player for a turkey, and then served the carved-up bird to local sportswriters – or whether Mitchell had legitimately whiffed the two greats.

Readers, with history’s help, can make their own decision. Ordinarily, a 17-year-old, female or male, would be impossibly overmatched against Ruth and Gehrig. To be sure, Ruth, age 37, was approaching his career’s end. Still, Ruth hit 49 homers the previous season and Gehrig, 41. But Mitchell had impressive credentials of her own. She was an all-around athlete who starred in basketball in the winter, and excelled at baseball in the spring. More than anything, however, Mitchell learned about pitching from her neighbor, Hall of Fame hurler Dazzy Vance – called Dazzy because his opponents said that his pitches dazzled them – who taught her how to throw the drop ball, now called a sinker.

The Yankees were traveling north for their Opening Day game against the Red Sox, and had scheduled two exhibition games against the Lookouts. With Mitchell under contract, and with game one – hint, hint – an April 1 Fools Day contest rained out, the April 2 game began ominously for the Lookouts. Starting pitcher Clyde Barfoot gave up a quick double and a single. Manager Bert Niehoff signaled to the bullpen for portsider Mitchell to face left-handed batting Ruth and Gehrig, the trusted lefty versus lefty pitching strategy at play.

Mitchell’s first delivery to Ruth was a ball followed by two swinging strikes, and a called strike three. Ruth threw his bat to the ground in – hint, hint, again – feigned disgust. Gehrig went down even easier than Ruth – three atypically wild swings at Mitchell’s offerings. After Mitchell walked the third slugger in the Yankees’ Murders’ Row line up, Tony Lazzeri, her day was done; the Yankees beat up on the Lookouts, 14-4.

The Times account provides some valuable insight into the goings on. Ruth, the newspaper wrote, “performed his role very ably,” and Gehrig “took three hefty swings as his contribution to the occasion.” Unsurprisingly Mitchell recalls her performance differently. Interviewed in 1987, Mitchell said, “Why, hell, they were trying, damn right.” Then, Mitchell added testily, “Hell, better [unidentified] batters than them couldn’t hit me.”

Readers trying to determine whether young “lipstick wielding” Mitchell, as one account referred to her, struck out Ruth and Gehrig on the up and up should remember that the Bambino was to his fans the consummate pleasure-giver and crowd-pleaser. He joked with them from his right field position, waved greetings as he drove through New York’s streets, visited hospitals spontaneously, signed every shred of paper, programs, baseballs, menus and match book covers put in front of him. Ruth knew that he had nothing to gain if he hit a tape measure 500-foot home run against a teenage girl and local darling.

Gehrig, who wasn’t going to show up Ruth, had nothing to prove either. Baseball loves a good story, and Mitchell’s tale filled the bill.

In 1933, after then-MLB Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis voided Mitchell’s contract, she signed with the House of David barnstorming team. But Mitchell quickly grew tired of its non-baseball antics that included playing games while astride donkeys, and retired to join her father’s Chattanooga optometry office.

In the end, no one can dispute that Mitchell faced three Hall of Fame greats – Ruth, Gehrig and Lazzeri – and struck out two of them on seven pitches. No pitcher can say the same, and, best of all, Mitchell’s once-in-a lifetime story is, even if orchestrated, 100 percent verifiable fact.

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Copyright 2022 Joe Guzzardi, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research and Internet Baseball Writers’ Association member. Contact him at [email protected].