Wayne Granger Only Wore a Cincinnati Reds Uniform for 3 Seasons, But Was Inducted into the Team's Hall of Fame

Former MLB relief pitcher Wayne Granger passed away on Wednesday at the age of 81. No cause of death was announced.

Granger grew up in Western Massachusetts in the small town of Huntington which is about 25 miles northwest of Springfield. In his youth, Granger played baseball, basketball and soccer in high school and would play baseball at Springfield College.

Prior to the 1965 season, Granger signed with the St. Louis Cardinals and would make his big-league debut with the club in 1968 when they won the NL pennant. Granger appeared in Game 6 of the World Series against the Detroit Tigers which the Cardinals lost 13-1. While Granger pitched two scoreless innings he did plunk both Al Kaline and Willie Horton.

Only 48 hours after Granger pitched in the World Series, the Cardinals would trade him and speedster Bobby Tolan to the Cincinnati Reds for veteran outfielder Vada Pinson. 

In his inaugural season for the Reds in 1969, Granger set a then big-league record with 90 appearances out of the bullpen resulting in 27 saves. The following year, the Reds would win the NL pennant and Granger contributed with a league leading 35 saves. During the 1970 season, the Reds would move from Crosley Field to Riverfront Stadium. Granger has the distinction of both throwing the last pitch and earning the last win for the Reds at Crosley Field in a game against the San Francisco Giants.

For the second time in three seasons, Granger would find himself in World Series competition this time against the Baltimore Orioles. In Game 3 of the 1970 World Series, Granger gave up a grand slam HR to Orioles pitcher Dave McNally marking the only time a pitcher ever hit a grand slam in World Series competition. Granger would also give up two runs in the deciding Game 5.

In 1971, Granger would lead the NL in appearances by a pitcher with 70. But the Reds struggled that season and the team would trade him to the Minnesota Twins for reliever Tom Hall. After a single season with Minnesota, the Twins would send him back to the Cardinals in the trade which brought Larry Hisle to the Twin Cities. 

Granger's second tenure with the Redbirds was short-lived and by August he was in a New York Yankees uniform. In the next three seasons, Granger would pitch with the Chicago White Sox, Houston Astros and the Montreal Expos ending his big-league career in 1976. Granger tried to hook on with the Atlanta Braves in 1977 but would be released during spring training and would end up pitching in the Mexican League for two seasons.

In 451 appearances (all out of the bullpen) over 9 big-league seasons, Granger went 35-35 with a 3.14 ERA collecting 108 career saves. 

Although Granger only pitched with the Reds for three seasons, he would be elected to the team's Hall of Fame in 1982. No other Reds player in the team's Hall of Fame played fewer seasons in Cincinnati than Granger.

Wayne Granger certainly made a lasting impression with Cincinnati Reds' fans. R.I.P.

Khamenei Reportedly Killed After U.S. & Israel Strike Iran

Following a joint U.S.-Israeli military operation in Iran, both Israel and President Trump have reported that the Ayatollah Khamenei has been killed in an airstrike. 

For their part, Iran claims Khamenei is alive, well and "commanding the field." Yet one must consider this to be a "Baghdad Bob" moment.

Trump told the Iranian people, “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take.”

Presuming that Khamenei and other members of Iran's leadership are dead or incapacitated, who will succeed them?

Consider what I wrote scarcely 48 hours ago:

Yet let us suppose there is military action in Iran. Who can say it would be any different than what occurred in Venezuela earlier this year where they extracted Nicolas Maduro only to install his vice-president as his replacement? Meet the new Ayatollah. Same as the old Ayatollah. 

I also think the words of Adrienne Mahsa Varkiani, an Iranian American, who is the Deputy Editor of The New Republic, should be given weight in a piece she wrote today titled "I Want Iran To Be Free More Than Anything; I Also Don't Trust Trump":

Trump can talk about how he cares about the freedom of Iranians all he wants, but everything he has done until now makes that hard to believe.

Just examine how the Trump administration is viewing its operation inside Iran. This round of strikes on Iran is not called “Operation Aiding Freedom”—or some feel-good cliche. It is called “Operation Epic Fury,” which is being led by the newly-renamed “Department of War.”

But if that is too small a point, perhaps we can look at what Trump has really done to support the Iranian people thus far. In 2017, just one week after becoming president, he banned all Iranians from the United States. It is almost silly to mention that now, given how much worse things have gotten since then, but at the time, it was a nightmare. For a few days, that ban applied to valid visa holders and permanent residents as well. I remember calling my cousins with green cards who were outside the country, trying to explain to them in my broken Farsi the latest on immigration law.

That ban has only gotten worse in his second term—with no new visa applicants allowed to enter the United States. (In his first term, Trump eventually relented and allowed Iranian students the opportunity to continue to come study here.)

Varkiani then goes on to decry Trump's decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018. I would part company from her on that for the simple reason the JCPOA had the effect of giving a lifeline to the Khamenei and company and only prolonged the suffering of the Iranian people. It is also worth noting that President Biden did not see fit to rejoin the JCPOA after rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement, UNESCO and WHO.

Nevertheless, I share Varkiani's mistrust of Trump regarding the aspirations of the Iranian people when he has gone out of his way never to welcome Iranians who opposed the regime in this country. In which case, who can say that Trump won't reach an agreement with a member of the existing regime as he has done in Venezuela? Or perhaps we will see the restoration of the House of Pahlavi. The days of the Shah of Iran don't look so bad after nearly half a century of rule by Shiite Islamic fundamentalists, but there were plenty of human rights abuses under the last Shah of Iran. Is there any reason to believe that Reza Pahlavi would be better than his father? After all, Bashar al-Assad proved to be more ruthless than his father in Syria.

Naturally, I shed no tears for Khamenei and hope the Iranian regime will come to a long overdue end. But I worry that Iranians will simply trade one murderous regime for another. And if Trump and his so-called Board of Peace are to be involved in a post-Khamenei Iran, the opportunities for corruption will be staggering. 

However, even if Iran's new regime is less than stellar, if it no longer has designs on the destruction of Israel then it will be one less thing for the Jewish state to worry about. Not that Israel isn't still surrounded by countries and an international community hostile to it. But not having a nuclear design with designs to use that nuclear power against Israel would be quite significant.

Of course, if it turns out that Khamenei is in fact not dead then both Trump and Israel will have egg on their face. Such an error would put the wind back into the sails of the Iranian regime. That would be most unfortunate. If you are trying to kill the Ayatollah, you better not miss.

UPDATE: Khamenei has been confirmed dead with Iranians taking to the streets to celebrate. I hope their celebration isn't short-lived. I also recall rejoicing in Baghdad after the fall of Saddam in 2003. Only time will tell.

Why I Will Forever Associate Neil Sedaka with Wheeling, West Virginia

Shortly before leaving work, I learned of the passing of singer-songwriter Neil Sedaka at the age of 86. Sedaka's death was sudden as he was rushed to the hospital early this morning.

The Brooklyn-born Sedaka had two distinct periods of success - the early 1960's when he scored hits like "Breaking Up is Hard to Do" and "Calendar Girl" and the mid 1970's when, with a boost from Elton John, had a career resurgence with "Bad Blood" (featuring John), "Laughter in the Rain" along with Captain and Tennille's cover of "Love Will Keep Us Together" which featured Toni Tenille singing "Sedaka is back" at the conclusion of the song.

Sadly, Sedaka is now gone.

Yet my favorite Neil Sedaka song comes not from his peaks but during the valley in between. When chart success proved elusive for Sedaka in North America and the U.K., he found a receptive audience in Australia and New Zealand and scored a couple of big hits in the late 1960's and early 1970's - "Star-Crossed Lovers" and "Wheeling, West Virginia".

For those of you familiar with these pages can hazard a guess that it is the latter song which has become my favorite of Sedaka's on account of my business trip to Wheeling in June 2025. In anticipation of my trip, I thought of songs about West Virginia. Of course, there is John Denver's "(Take Me Home) Country Roads" which is now the official state song. There is also "West Virginia Fantasies" which is part of Chicago's "Ballet for a Girl in Buchannon" suite composed by James Pankow.

But I certainly didn't expect to come across a song named for Wheeling much less one sung by Neil Sedaka. Co-written with his longtime lyricist Howard Greenfield, the song has a breezy, elaborate orchestration accompanied by introspective, morose lyrics on the price of success:

Where is the guy from Wheelin' West Virginia
Why did he have to roam
So far away from Wheelin' West Virginia
Thousands of miles from home

Gone is the guy from Wheelin' West Virginia
Gone is the world he used to know
There's no such place as Wheelin' West Virginia

It faded long ago 

Given that this was a hit south of the Equator more than half a century ago, I'm not sure how well known this song is Wheeling, West Virginia although I'm sure he must have performed at the Capitol Theatre at some point in his six-decade career. 

I cannot speak for the people of Wheeling, West Virginia, but I can tell you that I listened to this song scarcely 24 hours ago. I can also tell you that when I think of Neil Sedaka I will always think of Wheeling, West Virigina and when I think of Wheeling, West Virginia I will always think of Neil Sedaka. R.I.P.

Will There Be a New Iran?

The time has come to give long overdue attention to the situation in Iran.

Since late last year, there have been systemic protests against the Iranian regime with the regime responding by killing between 7,000 and 30,000 civilians.

Mass protests are hardly new in Iran. Indeed, they have occurred regularly since the ill-fated Green Movement of 2009 following the "election" of then Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Of course, then President Obama refused to back the Green Movement because he wanted to achieve a nuclear deal with Iran. For Obama, it was more important to preserve a repressive regime in the name of justifying his Nobel Peace Prize than it was to stand with people fighting for their freedom. 

Yes, it is true that in 2022 Obama admitted that he erred in not backing the Green Movement. Better late than never perhaps. But Obama knew what his choices were and chose his own ego over the greater good. If Obama were ever to be sent back to the White House, I do not have confidence that he would be any wiser. 

Yet Obama's failure to back the Green Movement has not stopped Iranians for standing up for themselves. There were protests influenced by the Arab Spring in 2011, the Dey Protests of 2017-2018, Bloody November in 2019 as well as the 2022 women led protest sparked by the murder of Mahsa Amini by Iran's morality police for not wearing her hijab properly.

What is different about this set of protests is how Iran's regime appears to be crumbling. Iran's Supreme Leader the Ayatollah Khamenei turns 87 in April, and the country has been plagued by water, food and fuel shortages. The Iranian regime is only capable of responding with violence against their own people.

Then there is the threat of military action by President Trump. Yet those threats are accompanied by diplomatic talks over its nuclear program. Should diplomacy succeed then the Trump Administration will have given the Iranian regime a lifeline and a guarantee of more water, food and fuel shortages with a large dose of political repression. 

Yet let us suppose there is military action in Iran. Who can say it would be any different than what occurred in Venezuela earlier this year where they extracted Nicolas Maduro only to install his vice-president as his replacement? Meet the new Ayatollah. Same as the old Ayatollah. 

From where I sit nearly 6,000 miles away from Tehran, I believe the best possible outcome would be if the regime were to collapse by the sheer force of popular revolt from within and for Iranians to determine their own destiny. I write this knowing full well such a thing is unlikely to happen without the aid of external actors. While it is true that Iranians have long been the most pro-American nation in the Middle East outside of Israel, leave it to Trump to squander that good will.

During his SOTU address earlier this week, Trump stated:

And just over the last couple of months with the protests, they’ve killed at least, it looks like, 32,000 protesters — 32,000 protesters in their own country. They shot them and hung them. We stopped them from hanging a lot of them with the threat of serious violence.

I'm not sure how much Trump has deterred the Iranian regime from killing their own people. Of course, Trump is right to decry these killings. Yet his credibility on the subject is severely undermined by the enthusiasm with which he and his administration defended the executions of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis last month. It is hard to take Trump seriously concerning his defense of political protest in Iran when he does not support political protest on American soil unless it is a crowd trying to overturn an election on his behalf. 

Unfortunately, when it comes to Iran, Democrats are little better. Democrats are falling all over themselves to accuse Israel of genocide while looking upon Iran with complete indifference except to oppose military intervention either by Trump or by Israel. Well, why would those who accuse Israel of genocide condemn Iran when Iran has long been a significant benefactor for Hamas? Why would pro-Hamas apologists bite the hand which helps feed Hamas?

Iran's Islamic regime has made the lives of Iranians miserable on all counts. Nothing good comes from their remaining in power. Yet they cannot be replaced by an entity which will either maintain the status quo or make things worse. But what Iran lacks in water, food, fuel and basic freedoms is made up by a thriving civil society which, in the face of death, has the capability of being the foundation of a new Iran which could contribute positively to the Middle East and the world. 

The question which remains is whether a new Iran will have a chance to emerge or if the Trump Administration gives it yet another lifeline.

Why Did I Watch Trump's 107 Minute SOTU Address?

 

I know there were a great many people who skipped watching President Trump's SOTU address including nearly half of all Democratic members of both Houses.

Of course, much of it was going to be bullshit just like his 100-minute address to Congress last March.

True to form, Trump told some whoppers.

He claimed that America was raking in trillions in tariffs from foreign government when in reality it is paid by American importers and passed onto consumers.

He claimed to have ended 8 wars when the U.S. is not party to most of these ceasefires or peace agreements.

He claimed America had record inflation under President Biden. In fact, America had much higher inflation both after the end of WWII and during the Watergate scandal.

He claimed America saw the sharpest drop in its murder rate in history. Except that the study didn't include either Jackson, Mississippi or Birmingham, Alabama which had the highest murder per capita rates in the U.S. in 2024. Even so, the murder rate has been declining for years save for a spike during COVID in 2020.

He claimed the price of eggs have declined by 60%. Perhaps the wholesale price, but not the retail price.

He claimed to have obliterated Iran's nuclear program but wants to go to war with them because their nuclear program is still in operation.

But then it got ugly. 

Trump claimed corruption was plundering America and laid all of it at the feet of "Somali pirates" in Minnesota. Says the President who is using his office to profit to the tune of nearly $4 billion off crypto schemes.

Well, President Reagan had the War on Drugs.

Well, now Trump has started the War on Fraud and is appointing JD Vance to lead the charge. 

You know the guy who created stories about Haitian immigrants eating cats and dogs. 

What could go wrong?

Based on what's already gone wrong, I shudder to think about that.

After all, the demagoguery of the Trump Administration against the Somali community is what eventually resulted in the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

Trump castigated Democrats for not funding DHS claiming they were impeding snow removal. Yeah, well here in Massachusetts, Governor Healey declared a state of emergency and called in the state National Guard. She didn't need Trump to take action.

This isn't to say that Trump didn't reward genuinely good deeds as he did with 100-year-old Navy Captain Royce Williams for his service in Korea bestowing him with the Congressional Medal of Honor. But like always, Trump made it about himself and said he wanted to give himself a Congressional Medal of Honor. Indeed, a few days ago, Trump said he should have received a Congressional Medal for visiting Iraq during his first term in 2018.

So why did I give 107 minutes of my time to a bullshit artist?

Because it is my duty to do so as an act of citizenry. If we are to effectively criticize Trump, then we have to remind ourselves of what he tells us and what he intends to do so no matter how nonsensical it is. Like it or not, Trump is President and that makes him a dangerous man. We need to shine a light to that danger and do everything in our power to make that danger stop.

In her SOTU response, Virginia Democratic Governor Abigail Spanberger noted:

In his speech tonight, the President did what he always does. He lied, he scapegoated and he distracted. And he offered no real solutions to our nation's pressing challenges, so many of which he is making actively worse. He tries to divide us. He tries to enrage us. To pit us against one another, neighbor against neighbor. And sometimes he succeeds. 

With that said, I would have preferred it if Democrats showed up and then walked out en masse as he was decrying Somalians. It would have made for compelling drama. 

At the same time, decades pass in days. Chances are very few people will remember what Trump said tonight. Some, of course, have tuned him out. But others among us because he will have said and done so many other egregious things. When you flood the zone with shit, some of it will remains and its stench will linger.

Thoughts on Another Snowstorm: Well At Least I'm Not in Fall River, MA or Providence, RI

As you may be aware, much of the Northeast United States was pummeled with snow. 

Here in Cambridge, we just got a little over a foot of snow. But we still have the snow from last month. And then there was the wind. 

Last night, I did some shoveling and my left arm is still sore.

Still, it could have been much worse.

Had I lived in either Fall River or New Bedford, I would have faced more than 3 feet of snow as the two southeastern Massachusetts communities received 41 and 37 inches of snow, respectively. 

Providence, Rhode Island also received exactly 3 feet of snow. The 28.6 inches it received during the Blizzard of '78 now seems paltry by comparison.

As for me, with Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey's state of emergency order, I worked from home yesterday. 

I will be working from home again today. While the snow has ceased to fall, the MBTA is operating on Sunday service. I am sure there will be residual delays for the rest of the week as was the case last month. 

I'll make my way to the office tomorrow. But for today I don't want to take any chances. I am at a stage in my life where I do not want to rush carrying my laptop and other stuff knowing full well that I would not be on time for work no matter how early I left.

Less is more. 

Well, maybe except when it comes to snow.

Bill Mazeroski Was So Much More Than His Game Winning HR in the 1960 World Series

 

Bill Mazeroski, best remembered for hitting a game winning HR in Game 7 of the 1960 World Series, passed away yesterday at the age of 89.

Mazeroski's death comes only a week after that of his longtime Pittsburgh Pirates teammate Elroy Face. With Mazeroski's passing, pitcher Vernon Law and outfielder Bob Skinner are the last living members of that 1960 World Series champion Pirates team which upended the powerhouse New York Yankees against all odds.

Yet Mazeroski was sometimes maligned for that HR with some mistakenly believing it was the only reason he was elected by the Veterans Committee into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2001. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Mazeroski was the greatest second baseman in the NL from late 1950s into the late 1960s winning 8 Gold Gloves at the position between 1958 and 1967. While his offensive production was modest with a lifetime batting average of .260 with 138 HR and 853 RBI over 2163 career games. His 2016 career hits as a second baseman puts him at 22nd on the all-time list although at the time of his retirement he would have been 11th which just goes to show how second base has emerged as a more offense-oriented position. Those 2016 hits put him 8th on the Pirates all-time list.

I cannot emphasize enough that Mazeroski spent his entire 17-year MLB career with the Bucs. Not only did he win a ring with the Pirates in 1960, but he also did so again in 1971. Maz and Roberto Clemente were the only two players who won rings with both teams though Danny Murtaugh did manage both teams. Bill Virdon played on the 1960 Bucs and by 1971 was on Murtaugh's coaching staff. 

Bill Mazeroski earned his place in baseball history not only through his historic HR off Ralph Terry to make the Pirates champions, but with his stellar play with Pittsburgh throughout his career. He belongs in Cooperstown.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention my trip to Wheeling, West Virginia last June. Of course, Mazeroski was born and raised in Wheeling which is about 60 miles west of Pittsburgh. Right across the street from the hotel where I was staying was a sports tavern with a mural of sports legends who were either from the Wheeling area or had spent time there. Mazeroski had a very prominent spot on that mural. He will always have a spot on that mural, a spot in Cooperstown and a soft spot in the hearts of Pittsburgh Pirates fans everywhere. R.I.P.