January 1998 News Archive

January 26, 1998
1998 Heartland Capitalists- Official Team Roster

The HEARTLAND CAPITALISTS are CBA's team of businessmen and economists. Peter Drucker is the new team owner (see January 8). How long Karl Marx remains the field manager is anybody's guess. But if the the team doesn't get off to a ferociously good start, look for a quick change of field managers. Afterall, Drucker's specialty is "management."

The Capitalists picked up three rookies. Two are American capitalists (Moore, Soros) and one is an American economist/sociologist (Sumner). That brings the total number of economists on the team to six (including the coaches Smith and Veblen.)

The BHUTAN VANGUARDS are one of the CBA's orginal cosmic teams, initially created in October, 1981. The current team is comprised of artists, mostly painters. However, this season, something unique has happened. The new field manager is Robert Mapplethorpe the unconventional and controversial photographer who died from AIDS in 1989 at the age of 43. This is the first time a photographer has led the Vanguards and it begs the question: will photographers be replacing the painters?

The Vanguards were the second best team in the Middleleague last season, winning 86 games and losing 76 (.531 winning percentage). There is only one rookie this season, Fred Williams, an Australian painter. But it might take more then this rookie pitcher to get the Vanguards by the rampaging Busriders who are dominating the Middle League.

Robert Mapplethorpe Rookie Vanguard Manager

The DELTA DRAGONS are the COSMIC BASEBALL ASSOCIATION's team of distinguished musicians. This season's team includes three rookies from three different musical fields. Representing the jazz stream is Charlie Mingus legendary bass-man. Representing modern classical music is the composer/conductor Leonard Bernstein and representing rock and roll is the former lead singer of the group Them, Van Morrison. The Dragons need all the help they can muster: last year they were dead last in the cosmic middleleague, posting a 73-89 won-loss record.

Spiritually related to the Dharma Beats and the Pranktown Busriders, the WOODSOX are not nearly as competent on the baseball field as their brothers and sisters. Last season the Woodsox were close to the cellar of the Middleleague posting a very mediocre 78-84 won-loss record.

Only one rookie, consumer advocate Ralph Nader, has been added to the team. Dave Dellinger and Richard Alpert (Baba Ram Dass) have been deactivated. So it is a real question whether or not we can expect anything better from this team this season.

CBA's team of experimental filmmakers is virtually unchanged from last season's edition (the exception is Dziga Vertov who was deactivated to accomodate the new roster size restrictions.) Last season the team played .500 baseball (81-81). Without any substantive changes the question is: can this group of independently minded film poets do any better? Look for career years from Kenneth Anger and Gregory Markopoulos at the plate. Pitching is a concern but Manager P. Adams Sitney's five-pitcher starting rotation of Brakhage, Breer, Conner, Deren and Eisenstein, if it holds up, could be the key to the team's success this year in the Middleleague.

Martin Luther King would be entering his 68th year if he hadn't been gunned down April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee by James Earl Ray. (Well, officially or theoretically, Ray assassinated King. Ray has since denied he was the killer.)

Ordained a Baptist minister in 1947 (he was still a teenager) King received his Ph.D. in 1955 from Boston University. He led the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott initiated by Rosa Parks in 1955. Two years later he helped organize the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) which was instrumental in organizing civil rights activities in the south. In 1963 King delivered his "I Have A Dream" oratory in Washington, D.C. which expressed hope for racial equality and inter-racial coexistence. His dream is yet to be realized.

Despite President John F. Kennedy's openly friendly attitude towards King, the president's brother, Robert Kennedy, then the Attorney General of the United States, allowed the FBI to wiretap and otherwise spy on the civil rights leader. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was convinced that the civil rights movement, and its charismatic leaders, had the potential to unravel the country's social fabric.

In 1964 King won the Nobel Peace Prize.

King joined the Cosmic Baseball Association in 1991 as a utility infielder for the Psychedelphia Woodstockings, CBA's team of 1960s personalities. He remains on the Woodsox' active roster for the upcoming season.

Martin Luther King-Official Cosmic Record
YEAR	TEAM	POS	BA	AB	H	HR	RBI
1991	Woodsox	if	.268	246	66	6	30
1992	Woodsox	if	.272	243	66	5	36
1993	Woodsox	if	.272	235	64	2	26
1994	Woodsox	if	.233	249	58	3	24
1995	Woodsox	if	.313	326	102	3	31
1996	Woodsox	if	.203	369	75	5	16
1997	Woodsox	if	.259	224	58	0	11
Total 7 Seasons			.258	1892	489	24	174
Abbreviations
POS-Position; BA-Batting Average; AB-At Bats; H-Hits HR-Home Runs; RBI-Runs Batted In; IF-Infield

Martin Luther King @
1997 Woodsox Roster

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January 16, 1998
Major League Baseball Teams- Site Standings

The New York Yankees sit atop the American League and the Atlanta Braves top the National League.

During the winter, when there isn't much in the way of fresh numbers and statistics to compile and interpret, baseball fans have to turn to other resources. How do current Major League Baseball teams rank according to the number of sites on the internet? The Yankees lead all Major League teams with 82 sites listed in the Yahoo catalogue. The new American League entry from Tampa Bay, the Devil Rays, are at the bottom, with 12 sites listed-- one less than the Arizona Diamondbacks, the National League's new entry.

For a complete list of the standings check out the MLB Site Standings plate.

Famed corporation management consultant, Peter F. Drucker, has bought the Heartland Capitalists from famed National Basketball Association player, Michael Jordan. Specific terms of the deal are not being disclosed. Jordan bought the team from Horatio Alger in 1994. Drucker was the Capitalists' field manager for three seasons (1984-1986) and compiled a won-lost record of 264-222.

Born in Vienna, Austria in 1909, Drucker came to the United States in 1937. His first management consulting gig was for General Motors in 1943. He rapidly became known as an unconventional but very successful management specialist. Today Drucker is the de facto major domo of management consultants. Actually, Drucker doesn't like the word "consultant", he calls himself a "social ecologist." He has published some 28 books beginning with his study of fascism, The End of Economic Man (1939). The Peter F. Drucker Graduate Management Center at Claremont College in California, where Drucker has been a professor since 1971, was named for him in 1987.

Drucker has offered many opinions on many subjects including education. In an interview in March 1997 in Forbes Magazine he made the observation that high school students should work for five years before going to college. That way college "will be more than a prolongation of adolescence." This is a very progressive idea from a profoundly conservative thinker.

In any case, the new owner of the Capitalists has his work cut out for him. Last season the tycoons and economists were two games under .500 and one wonders how much longer field manager Karl Marx will remain on the payroll.

Drucker Interview in Forbes Magazine

(Technocracy) Digital Drucker: Peter Drucker Online

CBA is pleased to make the following staff announcements:

Lynn Behrendt has been named Senior Web Site Editor. Ms. Behrendt is a poet and a mother of a young son. She is also a rookie firstbasewoman on this year's Paradise Pisces. Ms. Behrendt lives in New York's Hudson River valley.

Amy Susan Lampert has been named President, CBA Overleague. Ms. Lampert is chief executive officer of Womansworth, a consulting firm in the Boston area. She is also the mother of a young son.

Lewis James Schaffer has been named President, CBA Middleleague. Mr. Schaffer is a comedian working along the East Coast and based in New York City.

Audrey Weiss has been named President, CBA Underleague. Ms. Weiss is an economist and a photographer with an avid interest in modern dance. She lives in the Washington, D.C. area.

Behrendt-Lampert-Schaffer-Weiss

The COSMIC BASEBALL ASSOCIATION wishes all of our members and friends a happy and healthy New Year.

Here are some important dates during the upcoming year:

• January 1- 1998 Membership Year Begins

• February 11- Team Roster Submission Deadline

• March 15- 1998 Cosmic Playing Season Begins

• June 28- Free Agent Draft

• July 20- Rookie Draft

• October 9- CBA's 17th Anniversary

• October 16- Regular Playing Season Concludes

• October 21- Post Season Championship Games Begin

• November 26- Cosmic Universal Series Begins

January 1998 CBA News & Information Archive Plate
URL http://www.cosmicbaseball.com/0198news.html
Archived: February 1, 1998
Copyright © 1998 by the Cosmic Baseball Association

Email: editor@cosmicbaseball.com

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