BrianLehrer.TV; Competing Capitalisms

Welcome, today, competing visions of capitalism will our uniquely American version sustain us or leave us way behind other nations, economically and socially. Then life for African American New Yorkers before there was a Harlem. Now we can discover 19th century Gotham on our smartphones as we stroll through the 21st. Also today we hear about not the high but the low line, the plan for an underground oasis where trolleys used to rumble. All this plus former Yankee All-Star Jim Bowden who teaches us how to be really obnoxious fans. First, what kind of capitalism do you want? You can feel the question rumbling between this year's presidential contest. It Romney calls the president's vision for America, government centered, Obama labels the Republican budget, social Darwinism.

It's simplistic name calling, but it's part of a critical tug of war between the public and private sectors. That's ongoing worldwide. How he strike the balance here will determine America's futures. As our first guest, he is David Rothcop, CEO and editor at large for Foreign Policy Magazine. He has written a new book entitled Power Inc. The epic rivalry between big business and government and the reckoning that lies ahead. Thank you so much for joining us. Welcome to the program. My pleasure to be here. Your book includes the concept of a semi-state. What is that and are we one now? I don't think we are quite there. But the idea is that states used to be thought of in terms of certain kinds of powers, the ability to control their borders, to print money, to project force, to enforce their laws. And over the course of the past couple of hundred years, thanks to progress, and thanks to some systematic efforts to push back the role of the state.

There are a lot of states now that don't actually do those things. The internet and globalization that made it tougher to control borders, there are only a few countries that actually print money that you could exchange elsewhere in the world. There are probably a dozen and a half countries that could project force and sustain a war for more than a couple of days. And in terms of enforcing laws, because corporations or global and states are local, it's possible for corporations to actually place states against one another, to venue shop, to say, I'm not going to pay those taxes off those someplace else. And so it's become harder even to enforce laws. They're probably 150 out of 190 or so countries that fall within the definition of semi-states. If you define it to mean that two or three or four of those things that I just described apply to your state.

So that's the decline of state power vis-a-vis corporations. Do you also have a concept called super-citizen, does that apply to individuals? I suppose there are few individuals that sort of creep up to that level, but really it applies to corporations because in the sense that corporations were originally created to be immortal so that one could conduct economic affairs even after owners died, that gives them one advantage that we clearly don't have. Then gradually, over time, legal rulings, particularly legal rulings in the United States, have really empowered corporations to not only have a lot of the rights that we have of the five Supreme Court rulings or the Supreme Court rulings that have granted them five of the ten rights to enumerated and developed rights, but there have also been other factors that contribute to their superstitionship that got very, very big.

There are probably 2,000 corporations in the world that have economic resources greater than the smallest 50 or 80 countries. They also have political rights in some places like the United States that people don't have. Citizens United essentially said that the government can't regulate how much companies spend on political campaigns, which means that they get to spend more, they have more of the right of free speech than all of us do, and so on, and so give giant immortal entities with special rights that are designed to operate globally while we ordinary people end up being citizens within countries, sometimes citizens within countries that themselves are only semi-states. So you have, in the big sweep of history, the idea that basically socialism is dead, Marxism is dead, and the battle in this century is going to be between different forms of capitalism. Do I have that right?

And if so, where does the United States version today fit in? Well, I think you have that right. I think, you know, at the end of the Cold War, we do a bit of a victory dance and said it's all been resolved, it's the end of history, Wahoo, and America as one, and of course, I don't think that's really what happened. The United States had a moment there of being the sole superpower of the French called us the hyper power, and our system was the system against which, well, others was measured. Then in rapid succession, we did damage to ourselves with our involvement in the least, and did in some ways, particularly with regard to this issue, even more grievous damage with the financial crisis, and with the revelation that our system was becoming more unequal that social inequality was falling, that we weren't actually creating jobs, that median incomes were falling. And as all of that was happening, other countries that approached capitalism in other ways were doing better. Germany was creating more jobs, had a bigger social safety net.

China was growing faster, Brazil, and India were growing faster. When you look around and you saw that, whether you're talking about European capitalism, particularly the capitalism in Northern Europe, capitalism with Chinese characteristics, or democratic development, capitalism in Indian, Brazil, or the capitalism of small entrepreneurial states like UAE, or Israel, or Singapore, that while they were all different, they all had one thing in common that was different from us, which is they all counted a bigger role for the state, whether it was the state helping to make the country more competitive, the state being more involved in providing health care or social safety net, the state being more clear-cut partner of businesses, they were buying in to a different balance between the corporate world and the public sector than we were.

Did you hear about the Yale University faculty voting to express concern last week that Yale is opening a branch in Singapore? Singapore the idea is that Western liberal education with freedom of thought may not be compatible with the kind of government that they have over there, even though some Americans hold up Singapore as a model. Well, I don't think any of the models that I just described are models that are without flaws and clearly Singapore has got some issues with regard to democracy and with regard to free expression of thought. That said, there are a lot of Western institutions that want to be active in Singapore, that admire what's being done there economically, and that recognize that one of the realities of the global era is that different values are being brought to bear.

I think one of the things that's hard for us in the US, most of them have been raised with the idea that we're the light to the world and it's our example that really ought to be followed by everybody else is that prior to the American example, there was the European example and that was the center of gravity. Now the center of economic gravity is shifting to Asia and whether we like it, we don't like it, the reality is that's going to make them have an advantage in the global marketplace of ideas and whether it's the Chinese or the Singaporeans or the Indians or versions of capitalism practice elsewhere, we're going to have to get used to the fact that our values may not win the day. Are we seeing a new chapter in the relationship between economic freedom and political freedom? We like to think in this country that democracy and capitalism are intertwined with one

another, but that's clearly not the case in China despite how successful they've been recently at capitalism. It's clearly not the case in China, one might argue it's clearly not the case here. If big corporations have the ability to contribute as much money as they want to a political system that is entirely dependent on money in order for candidates to be selected or to determine whether they're victorious or not, that's not very democratic either. We may condemn the Indians or countries in Africa for corruption within their systems, but we have a form of white color corruption here with regard to lobbyists, with regard to revolving doors, even President Obama who's been quite outspoken on these issues has seen something like half of the big bundlers who contributed to his campaign or raised money for it end up in his government, in top government roles.

Does that go too far because it sounds like you're stating a kind of moral equivalency between the United States and China with respect to the amount of democracy and whatever the problems with our campaign finance system and so forth, do you mean to put the two on about the same plane? No, not at all. I mean clearly, we are more democratic, clearly our system works better, clearly we have a history of creating more opportunities, clearly in terms of our foreign policy, we are willing to stand up for values worldwide. What I'm trying to say however is that before we get up on our high horse and our dismissive of them at this particular point in their path to development, we ought to recognize that we are living in a house if not entirely made of glass that's got a lot of exposed glass surface. Do you think that the rise of the internet mitigates

any of this anywhere? Well sure, I mean the internet is a factor that in powers, large groups of people out there, grassroots power whether it was the campaign number of years ago to stop the spread of landmines or the ability that protesters in Tahrir Square had to organize using the internet and social media, that's a helpful democratizing force. Having said that strangely enough, big actors, big corporate actors in particular are the ones that are benefiting the most from the internet and are using it and it's not exactly like Google or Apple or Microsoft or thought of as soft, cuddly inspiring geek, lead, garage enterprises that we sometimes like to think of the internet as we are. Do you think that this, excuse me, that this tension in the presidential election

this year, is pivotal to the future of the United States? Well yeah, I think we all suffer from a disease which you might call temporal narcissism which is we all think our moment in history is the most important moment and politicians tend to compound this. I don't think I've ever lived through an election where politicians said this is one of the least consequential elections of our lifetime. It's always the most important. But interestingly, I think in terms of this election, despite the fact that politicians say that it's the most pivotal election in history, it's really quite important because you've got a Republican party that's essentially advocating the policy of the past 30 or 40 years of both parties which is to leave it to the markets, the markets will take care of themselves and the president beginning for the first time in recent memory to start saying, what about fairness? What about the 99%? What about this inequality?

What about faltering social mobility in the United States? Shouldn't we push back on it? I don't think he's done it as dramatically as he could have or his other candidates might but I do think that this discussion is going to be central to our future. And at the same time while we are looking inward at ourselves during this election, the world is changing very, very rapidly. And if we don't get with the program, start figuring out how we can compete, start figuring out how public-private partnerships can work in our future as they have in our past with the building of canals or railroads or the internet or much of the technological innovation that came out of the space program, then we're going to fall further and further behind, much as we have been in terms of relative economic strength for the past couple of decades. Can you talk more about the idea of public-private partnerships? I think you put part of the uniqueness of the American version of capitalism right there, don't you?

Yeah, and I think it's been a great strength of the United States. And one that I think we have minimized to our detriment over the course of periods and say the Reagan Thatcher revolution in the early 1980s, the freedom and revolution of the early 1980s, because it was the public sector working together with the private sector that knit America together, whether it was with canals or with railroads or with the highway system that was putting place, it was the public sector working with the private sector that helped fund the development of radar, the development of GPS satellites, the development of the internet, the development of a lot of the technologies that have given us the edge, a lot of computing technologies, even the things that we think of as the most quintessentially private sector, venture capitalism. Well, a lot of venture capitalism was essentially funded by programs created during the Eisenhower administration to leverage up small businesses and technological advantages

so that we could help compete with the Soviets. Do you have a line that you draw where the optimal relationship is in our last minute or so between the public and the private sectors? Well, there's no line. I think what we have to do is move away from dog lines. You set in the introduction. We have to move away from the Orwellian four legs good, two legs bad, cartoonish argumentously bad. When government can help, it should help. When government can help, it should do it efficiently and it should step back when it's doing something that the private sector can do well. When the private sector needs help and when social justice warrants it, then we have to have the public sector at the table. We need a balance. Right now we're not even having an honest discussion about what that balance ought to be. Thank you very much for having some of that discussion here. I appreciate it. Up next the untold story of African American New Yorkers in the 1800s. It was the best and worst of times. Did you know CUNY leads the way

for students with disabilities? CUNY leads means linking employment, academics, and disability services. If you're a CUNY student with a visible or invisible disability, the City University of New York offers eligible students free career development and placement services. To find out if you qualify, visit CUNY.edu slash CUNY leads. CUNY leads to the career I always wanted. Mom, I'm not going to go to college. What are you saying? You've got to go to college. Well, they offered me a job and... Son, college is much more important. No. Yes. No, mom. Yes. Anyways, it's my decision. Okay, well then decide what degree you're going to get because you will go to college. There tomorrow depends on your words today. The Hispanic scholarship fund has the information you need to help your kids go to college.

When you throw away money on wasted electricity, you're throwing away everything you could have bought with it. Saving energy saves you money. Learn more at energiesabers.gov. We know about today, but what was life like for African Americans in New York in the 1800s? Before Harlem, where did black people live? How free, how educated, how integrated, how prosperous was life? The answers are surprising and personal for our next guest, Carla Peterson. As she began to dig into her own family history, Peterson, a professor at the University of Maryland, wrote the book Black Gotham and is now creating an interactive mobile archive

that all of us can use to walk back in town. Carla Peterson joins us by a Skype from College Park. Welcome to the program. Thank you so much for coming on in Hello from New York. Hello, Brian. It's good to be on. You write that the Harlem model that we think of today was wrong for the 19th century, where did black New Yorkers live? Well, indeed, I like your use of the phrase Harlem model because it really is a model what we have in mind as what we're black New Yorkers live, but that is a 20th century phenomenon. And the fact is, is that in the 19th century, Harlem was a mere village and blacks did not live there at all, but like all other populations coming into the United into New York, they started out in lower Manhattan. So they congregated mainly in lower Manhattan in the area that was now known as the five points, because it was the intersection of five streets. And it's about where center street,

Leonard Street, Worf Street, Baxter Street are today. Not far from Chinatown and City Hall. Absolutely, absolutely. And from there, they branched out west, you know, across West Broadway, church street, Greenwich Street, Hudson Street, etc. to the Hudson River, and then east towards the East River. And the really interesting thing is that they lived in clusters, maybe blocked by block or within houses within blocks, but they lived in clusters among white people, whether they were newly arrived, Irish or German immigrants, or whether they were a native born who had been there for a while, so that you had a lot more of an integrated neighborhood than you did, according to following the Harlem model. But did that go along with an economic integration, or were the African Americans in New York at that time overwhelmingly

poorer than the whites? Of course, they were overwhelmingly poorer than the whites. And so there was one could say that there was not economic integration since the massive blacks were poor and lived next to poor Irish and poor Germans and so forth. But on the other hand, the group that I talked about, my family was in the lead. And they were not, they of course never had the kind of money that the asters and others had. But they did have money, but it was hard for outsiders really to distinguish them from the mass of other blacks. Within their community, they could very much distinguish themselves by virtue to a certain extent of money, but much more education and elite standing, this kind of idea of social respectability. And your search for a black author of the 19th century began with your personal search regarding your own genealogy,

your own relatives. I was looking before at an obituary of I think your great-great-grandfather. So, if that's Peter Keeneong, absolutely. Yes, so tell us about your own search and how that led you to look at the larger conditions in the city. Yeah, so I'm a professor here at the University of Maryland and I specialize in blacks in the antebellum north and I've done a lot of work on Philadelphia and on Boston, but much less on New York. And so after I finished my last book, somebody said, why don't you write a book about your family? And I do mirror it, but then I said sure, which was a little bit of a crazy thing to do because I really had nothing. I had the name of my great-grandfather which was Philip Augustus White, but that was about it. I didn't know anything about my family. And so I trudged up to New York and spent a lot of time digging around in the archives. And it was at the Schomburg that I came across what you're showing now, which is

a scrapbook page torn from an identified scrapbook located in the Rhoda Golden Freeman collection at the Schomburg. And I was only able to identify Peter Keeneong because on the page before, come across the obituary of Philip White, who had, and Peter Keeneong also, obituary, it says that Philip White married his one-in-only daughter Elizabeth. And I also then I found my great-grandfather. So your great-grandfather and his father-in-law, and how elite were they when you talk about them being part of a black elite at that time, what did they do? And where did that put them in black society? Where did that put them in New York society across racial lines? Okay, so they all started very poor backgrounds, and that was true of all members of the black elite. They came with nothing.

Mostly that very often it was a white father and a black mother, and the white father had disappeared. That's not the case with Philip White whose father was from Northern England and was very much present in his life, but they really had nothing. And it was education, education, education, education. So the famous school at the time was called the Mulberry Street School, and it was sponsored by the Manuemission Society, the New York Manuemission Society, and gave really a pretty good education to black youth at the time. And based on that, and hard work, and the desire to succeed, the black elite managed slowly and painfully to call up the socio-economic ladder. So interestingly enough, both my great-great-grandfather and my great-grandfather were pharmacists. James McEwen Smith was a doctor. There were, of course,

several teachers. There were ministers and so forth. What distinguished them were that was then their education, their literacy, stable employment, and also the sense of kind of the development of moral character, character with such a big word at the period, also of respectability. And that's what really constituted somebody as elite. Making money, this is New York, so of course, make as much money as you can. And in terms of the white elite, there was indeed a certain amount of interaction. So one of the really interesting stories I found was that of my of Peter Ginyon's second father law, I'll leave it at that, a man by the name of Peter Ray, who started out at the age of 11 as an errand boy in the Lord Lord tobacco factory and ended up at age, oh, in 1882, as the superintendent of the New Jersey, of the of the new factory in Jersey City. And he was

valued by the Lord Lord's because he was so good at what he did. He was a great judge of meath tobacco, what was best for cutting, for chewing, for making stuff, etc., etc. What was the relationship of people in that strata of the black community to the rest of the community? This was decades before Du Bois idea of the talented 10th quote unquote, and their responsibilities socioeconomically down the chain to the rest of the community, was there talk about that and was there a certain kind of relationship? Absolutely. We all think it starts with Du Bois in the talented 10th, not at all. The idea was very much in place from maybe the 1820s or 1830s on, and it was called racial uplift or elevation of the race. And the really what I think is so interesting is that racial uplift applied to those who were less educated, had less money,

did not have skills, but it applied to the black elite as well. There was always room for self improvement, and the black elite was never willing to rest and say, well, we have achieved, so let's just raise those who are lower than us. And it was all about education. We need to educate every member in the community that we can. By the way, I see that your own research also turned up at least one family scoundrel. James, you rate your great, great, great uncle. Jumped out of the family. Absolutely. And so there he is. He became an actor, and there was African-American theater on Mercer's Mercy Street. The African Grove Theater run by a man by the name of William Brown. And my great-great-great-great, James Hewlett. I'll leave it at that. Played the roles of Othello and Richard III and so forth. And William Brown was

very determined. He knew a lot about publicity, and he really wanted a bigger public. And so he really went after white customers, and succeeded in getting the white customers away from other white theaters. And so there was a riot in the early 1820s and a big, big mess. And James Hewlett was involved in that, and then in all kinds of other things. But being an actor, my family considered very, very not respectable. And so they jumped him out of the family. For being an actor, a Shakespearean actor, no less. Shakespeare will come up later in the show again. I believe on our baseball segment. And enough said about that for the moment. But before you go, just tell us about the app. This is something that people can use to do what? Discover their own family histories or just take themselves on a tour of Black New York of the 19th century?

Much more the latter. So I'm in the process of putting together a digital archive. And it will have a lot of material based on my on black off of my book. And it'll be kind of a digital version of my book with a lot more images. And a lot of information and one of them indeed will be a walking tour with a smartphone and apps as well. But the thing that I really want to do is turn my readers or viewers into writers themselves. And so find a way once my digital archive is up is to have my readers, viewers contribute their own black off them stories to the digital archive and also to create apps also in the walking tour that can be added on. Sounds like great fun. Thank you very much for joining us. You're welcome. Thank you.

Well, you know about the High Line. That was you have strove along that wonderful elevated park on the lower west side. But will there be a low line to underground? That's next. I look up to a lot of the older heads, you know, the the innovators, the heads of the art movements of the past. They kept it really edgy and like a lot of the Latin American muralists and Latin American artists and their styles are very unique and new to their time. You know, somewhat controversial, but that's why I look up too mainly. Personally, I'm very excited about going to college. It's something new and it's something different than what I'm used to. I'm definitely going to be a little out of my element, but that's what makes it so exciting is that, you know, it's something fresh. Well, there's so many opportunities that I think I can miss out on if I didn't go, you know. Getting into college takes planning and vision. You know, it's just like when I take a brick wall

and turn it into a canvas for my art, paintings help me realize that I've got what it takes. Learning how to kickflip six stairs takes determination. So we're getting into college. I've got what it takes, so do you. In New York City, the past is right under our feet. Our next guest would like to not only preserve that past, but also embrace the future with a new high-tech green space in what was formerly

a trolley terminal at the foot of the Williamsburg Bridge. Here to highlight the low line park proposal called the Lancey Underground is co-founder Daniel Bausch. Hi there. Hi, thanks so much for having me. So what's there now? So the site we are looking at is an abandoned trolley terminal and it was built in 1903 around the time when the Williamsburg Bridge was built and it has a bit touch just 1948. So we got a visit underground and what we saw are the remnants of a trolley terminal built at the turn of the century. Now when I think of trolley cars, they're running that surface level. Why is this underground? So our understanding is that the trolley cars deposited passengers coming from Brooklyn into Manhattan right at the base of the Williamsburg Bridge and then the trolley cars would go underground to be serviced and turn around and then go right back over the bridge. So to our understanding, passengers didn't use the underground space. It was really

simply a streetcar depot. And so you're trying to do what with it? Well our vision is to transform this space into a beautiful underground park using a new form of solar technology that channel sunlight and reflects natural sunlight below ground at intensity that supports photosynthesis. And this is an envisioning of it that we're seeing on the screen now? That's right. Our vision imagines an underground space in which sunlight is brought underground in a visually stunning way and the inclusion of some beautiful elements like plants and trees and grasses as well as really creating an experience that some have compared to the high line in the sense that it could potentially be a beautiful transit corridor and an amenity for the neighborhood and the community. Talk about this slide that's up right now. So here you have a few kids who are enjoying kind of a tranquil moment here in the underground. There are a couple of elements here that might be

helpful to imagine. So you might imagine what's happening above ground. It may actually be freezing cold and it could be February but it is a nice beautiful sunny day. So the sunlight is streaming in. One of the things that we've heard many times in asking the Lower East Side community around if we had the opportunity for a new open space, the Lower East Side is actually lacking in community space. What would the community use this space for? And one of the things we keep hearing are that young people would really benefit from having something like this a few blocks away from where they go to school and live. So we know that there's a high school, there's just a few blocks away that actually doesn't have a playground for kids to play on. And so it could actually be the opportunity for parents to bring their kids to a place that is fun and engaging and also hopefully a really exciting symbol of the potential of new technologies. So it's underground. So it would be warm and protected from the elements as you described. But what makes it a green

space? You said trees. Could trees actually grow underground? Right. So the solar technology that we are exploring here actually would reflect sunlight below ground at an intensity that is strong enough to support photosynthesis. So certainly nothing replaces on a beautiful sunny day being outside. But I think what this would do is it reflects sunlight using a system of fiber optics that reflects that light rather efficiently. That's what we're seeing here represented? Exactly. Exactly. So you would imagine that at street level we would have some hopefully very beautiful solar collectors that would reflect that light, focus it to one specific point, and then simply reflect that using a system of mirrors below ground. And then the inverse would happen below ground. So you would have in the ceiling of this space some reflective surfaces that would generate some really beautiful light and hopefully integrate into the design in a really compelling way. Would you also generate excess solar energy that you could sell to Con Ed?

That sounds fantastic. But I don't know that this is actually an energy project. This is really focusing on day lighting, which is certainly an industry that exists outside of this particular innovation. And we're back inside with the next slide. It really looks like a park here. Well, yes, the tracks. Right. So again, some of the features that you can see here involve the introduction of some beautiful design elements that play with some of the remnant elements. As you asked earlier, what exists underground are some remnant cobblestones, some Belgian blocks that were literally placed there in the earliest parts of the 20th century. And they're still there. They haven't been touched. And there are still rail lines. There are still these elevated ceilings and sort of the rusty columns. And for the urban explorer, it's a really exciting environment. So in the same way that the high line and other spaces in the city sort of really

pay homage to the history of what that site really was, this would really be an opportunity for us to integrate some beautiful dynamic new design with some of the older design in a sort of a history meets modern kind of way. And you would leave the tracks in place, and that's part of the analogy with the high line. It's an acre, is that right? It's one and a half acres and 60,000 square feet. So which is less than a square block. So that's something by New York City standards. It's not central park. It's definitely not central park, but I think it's a little bit smaller than parks like Grammar Sea Park. And I think in New York City we'll take everything that we can get. And I know that what's happening actually in this neighborhood, this is an important element, is that it actually is one of the largest urban redevelopment areas in the entire sort of basically in all of Manhattan and South of 125th Street. And in all of the planning that is really going into this, there isn't really a lot of open space plans. The community is agreed upon

what will be happening there. And open space is not necessarily a big part of that redevelopment zone. So we do actually think that we have something to contribute to this community. And actually I think we have a unique political environment to potentially make it happen. Now you've been very successful on the crowdfunding site Kickstarter. I gather you've raised $150,000 in like regular folks donations toward the project. Congratulations on the popularity of it. But that doesn't guarantee that this is going to go forward. Who owns this space again? So the the city owns the space and the MTA holds a master lease to this location. The MTA, we expect, we'll submit a request for proposals later on this year. Again, in tandem with some of the redevelopment planning happening above ground. So what are the next few steps for us as we hopefully create a sense of inevitability around this project? But I think more importantly, how do we come back to the MTA and the city with the business model that makes sense? We are working with HRNA with with Arab, some of the world's best experts in engineering and

land use and architecture, right? And our our hope is that what we can do alongside these experts is come back to the table with some very, very real concrete numbers and plans. So for example, exactly how much will this cost? Exactly, more importantly, what will be the benefits to the community? By some accounts, the Highline has been able to say that even in its short existence, you know, it costs roughly $150 million to build, but it's generated $2 billion in retail and real estate value for the West Side of Manhattan. So the question is, what are those numbers for, you know, in our case on the Lower East Side in a neighborhood that desperately needs this, and in a neighborhood where the community very much is signaling its support. How much would it cost the city or the MTA? Again, we're engaging in really robust engineering and land use research to to arrive at a real number. You know, I think it's fair to say that it will be significantly less than the Highline, but we'll definitely be many millions of dollars.

And are you a business or a non-profit? We are incorporated as a 501c3 non-profit organization, so we are accepting tax-doctoral donations. Well, good luck. It sounds like a good space if it comes to fruition. Thank you very, very much. Thanks very much. Up next, ex Yankee Jim Bowden on how to be a really obnoxious fan. When you earn your GED diploma at barriers in your life, fall on it, take the first step and get free GED information in your area at 1-877-38 your GED or your GED dot org, earn your GED diploma, and begin your brighter future. Traditional white bulbs actually generate nine times more heat than light.

Switch to energy start light bulbs, and you'll realize just how much cash you are really burning through. Saving energy saves you money. Learn more at energysavers.gov. Well, baseball season is underway. Yippee, I go to some games, and when I do, I always wonder if the players actually hear or pay attention to the insults hurled at them from the stands. You know, it's a baseball tradition to express one's feelings about the opposing players and even your own players when they perform badly. Former Yankee all-star pitcher Jim Bowden understands baseball etiquette. He's the author of the bestseller, Ball 4, which is now available in digital form and in audio, and Jim joins us by a phone from his home in the Berkshire Mountains. Hi, Jim, happy baseball season. Thank you, Brian. So, let's talk about you as a fan. You're a kid growing up in New Jersey. Did you root for the Yankees? No, it was a blue

collar town, and in Rochelle Park, you know, either rooted for the Dodgers or the Giants. Yankee fans, we figured we were kids who lived in another town, a better town, where the sons of bankers, we were Giants fans and Dodger fans. So, even then, the Yankees were General Motors. Yeah, it's like rooting for U.S. Steel, somebody once said. Did you hear as a Giants fan, the shot heard, round the world, the famous Bobby Thompson Giants win the pendant and home round in 1951? Are you kidding? I know that whole thing. Bobby Thompson hits into the lower deck of the left field stand and they're going crazy. Yes, I saw it. I had just gotten home from school, rushed into the house. My mom was ironing. She didn't have a game. I said, mom, how can you not have a game on? Turned on the game. So, Bobby Thompson's home run. And the minute he hit it, I ran out of the house. He said, where are you going? I said, I'm going

to Robert Eriana's house. Robert Eriana was a friend of mine. He was a die-hard Dodger fan. We were always arguing, oh, who was better? You know, Duke Snyder will be amazed. T. We reached around in dark. So, I hated the Dodgers and he hated the Giants, but now I had to go taunt him and raise him. So, I ran all the way. It was about a mile and a half. That's about as big as Rochelle Park is. I ran all the way when I got to the house. The drapes were closed and I rang the doorbell, rang the doorbell, rang knocked on the door. Finally, his mother came to the door and I said, is Robert home? He said, Robert's not feeling well. And you knew why. And he didn't come to school for a week. Yes, the attachments we have to our teams and the humiliation by an extension and association that we experienced. Did you go to games as a kid? And if you did, did you rise? Did you boo? No, we didn't. You know, to me, walking into the polar grounds was

like our religious experience. It was like a cathedral. It was, we'd get there very early before the game. We'd camp out above the Chesterfield pack in left field and hoped that, you know, one of the giants or Bob Elliott or some of those guys who could really hit the ball from the visiting team would hit a ball up in the stands and we could get it. We even brought a fishing net with us on a long pole. We snuck it into the ball park and we had practiced in front of our house catching long fly balls with this fishing net, but we weren't able to catch any balls. We loved it. We loved, we loved going to the polar grounds and when the giants moved to, I'm sorry, when we moved to Chicago, we went to watch the games in the Riggly Field. I remember going down to the Dodger to the Giants dug out and wanted to let them know that, you know, hey, there was somebody here from New York and we were Giants fans and, you know, we're rooting for you.

And Alvin Dark looked up to me and he says, take a hike, kid. My brother says, what did he say? He said, Alvin Dark told me to take a hike and we got home. That was the biggest thrill of the day. Hey, Dad, guess what? Alvin Dark told Jim to take a hike. So the, in that case, the manager was the players were heckling the fans instead of the fans heckling the players. Right. Did you hear the booze? Did you hear the heckling when fans would get on you when you were a pitcher? Oh, yeah. I loved it. I thought it was a lot of fun. I got a big kick out of it, particularly in Boston. The Boston fans are, well, I mean, they really did. It sounds like it's like pitching in the Roman Coliseum in Fenway Park, Fenway Pack. Fenway Pack, was that a particularly enlightened attitude toward the Boeing? Did it get on other guys more and get under their skin? No, not really. Because, you know, you got that all over

the place. Most of the guys just, you know, blocked it out. And I blocked it out after a while, just because it was, you know, I didn't want to interfere with my concentration. But, you know, I liked it in the beginning. I liked hearing what they had to say and the screaming things at you. I got a big kick out of it. Do you have any advice for the baseball fans in our audience about how to be better hecklers? Some guy wrote a book and he was explaining exactly how fans could be better hecklers. And one of the things was that you should know the minor league team, the top, the AAA team of whatever team you're rooting against. And then when a player comes up to bat and you holler out, you know, a Des Moines. Speaking of it, if he doesn't get ahead, he's going to go down to Des Moines. Schenectity, Birmingham. Right. I gather it's hard for Yankee fans to do that this year because the Yankees

AAA team, if I have this right, is homeless. So they're playing games in this city and that city and the other city. That must be a bizarre experience for a kid coming up trying to make the majors. Well, yeah, I guess so. I never had that experience before. But, you know, the worst thing is going from one minor league team to another minor league team, to another minor league team. I'm the guy who's spent a whole summer playing on four or five different minor league teams. Tell us about your idea for putting a fan on the field. Well, I was always thinking about how fans really want to influence the game. You know, they holler things. They try to reach for a ball. If the opposing team is trying to catch the ball, they try to jostle them. You know, they're dying to have some influence. And so I thought that they ought to have something called a wild card fan where fans would if they thought they could play ball or do a decent job, they would bring their spikes in a glove

and they would fill out a postcard and drop it in a, you know, a canister or something like that. And then they would draw one of these cards during the game, like say the third inning. And then that player would then that fan would then come down onto the field and they would stick them in, you know, at a particular, he'd put them in a third or something like that. You wouldn't want them pitching or catching. But, you know, third base. You wouldn't want them at third. That's the hot corner or get his head knocked off by a line job. Well, you wouldn't want them at shortstop, you know, they would rack them up on a double play or something like that. So you stick them in the lineup and see how he does. And of course, you know, if he doesn't do well, then, you know, you have police protection for him so he can get, you know, home. So, and the idea is what? The idea is that he would play, you know, for the rest of the game, we're maybe two or three innings and see how he did. All right. But you do this all the time, you're the irregular thing so that when you played the opposing team, when you were in

at their ballpark, that they would have the wild card fan. And that would be a question of which which team had the best fans, the best, you know, guys who could play ball. This might work at City Field kind of as well as well. I don't know, it's David right over there. So shouldn't put down the Mets too much. In fact, did you know that I should have a place in the hall of shame for being the worst hot dog vendor in the history of Shea Stadium. This was for Jets games, but somehow I would manage to sell hot dogs for like three hours and come home with maybe $10 in my pocket. I have no idea how I did it. But you also have some thoughts about the noise as we talk about heckling from the vendors at the stadiums, right? Yeah, I always enjoyed the different vendors in the different ballpark. They all have a different attitude or a different manner. In the minor leagues, there was a vendor that I enjoyed listening to. And when he would be selling hot dogs or whatever it was, and he would proceed with

something that sounded like Seanabagai. Hey, Seanabagai hot dogs. Hey, Seanabagai peanuts. I don't know what that word was, but you know, it seemed to work for him. And I particularly like the New York vendors, AP notes. How many, you know what I mean? It's like you have to get peanuts. It's just a question of the quantity. And then I like the A-B-A-A-C-O-B-A. It's like it was threatening you to buy one of these cold beers. And Fenway Park is always great, you know, once you understood the language. I never got the vendors with a sneer. You know, I get it with the waiters at the Carnegie deli and that kind of thing, but are they going to sell more beer to you, more peanuts? If they're sneering at you as they walk up and down the aisle and get those vendors exist. Well, I never saw, you know, well, I spent much my time on the field, but when I would go into the stands, to me, vendors were always seemed to be having a good time. I mean, you're at a ball game.

Your job is to sell food and not block important plays on the field. Not blocked as much as possible. Maybe that's why I didn't make any money. I was a little too interested in what was going on. Yeah, you were watching in the game. Tell me on a more serious note, both for among many other things, talked about, let's say, the substance abuse, the juicing of its day, which was mostly alcohol. But today, of course, everybody talks about players and steroids. How would you compare what players took in those days to what they take today? Well, the only drug that we took was something called secreties, pep pills. And they were kind of thing you would take if you were going to be, you know, driving late at night or you got a little tired, or you wanted to study for an exam or something like that. And fatamines, absolutely. And fatamines, exactly right. But they didn't make you bigger or

stronger or faster. They're not good to take, but they're completely different than steroids. Steroids is another, you know, a whole other, a whole other animal. Steroids actually increase your muscle mass, makes you bigger, stronger, faster, and actually gives you an unfair advantage over players who are not taking it. So greenies were performance enablers. They enabled you to play up to your ability. But steroids were performance enhancers. They made you a different person and they're dangerous. So I think there's a very big difference between the drugs that are back then and, you know, the amphetamine is back then and steroids now. Even that, and your stories about players drinking and stuff like that was considered a big scandal at the time was kind of the first behind the scenes book that came out, written by somebody who was still in the majors at the time. And then I gather that you were subjected to your own heckling once you went back on the mound, not by the fans, but sometimes by other players.

Yes. I don't know if I can tell you what the rose screamed at me from the Cincinnati dug it. Tell me the FCC friendly version. FU Shakespeare, that's what Rose Hollard. Shakespeare. And I thought, yeah, yeah. And I was standing on the mound and I thought, hey, Pete Rose, a literary reference. That's great. There you go. Did any of the players read the book, the Mickey Mantle and those guys who were teammates up and wrote about read the book? No, I don't think so. Most of the guys were not readers. You know, they were, you know, a little more than high school educated and they stayed that way for most of their careers because they didn't read. If you read a book on a bus or something, you were nicknamed the professor. I remember one time I was reading a paperback book and one of my teammates came over to me and he sat down next to me and he was watching me read and finally said, tell me something. I see

you reading a book there. I see you reading a lot. He said, does that make you smarter? And he really wanted to know. Thanks, Shakespeare. And that's it for this week's show. We roll out a new episode Wednesday night, 730 or see us anytime at CUNY.tv and check out my daily radio show weekday mornings at 10 on WNYC. Tomorrow morning, gridlock Sam Schwartz on the proper place for trucks on New York City streets. That's on 93.9 FM and AMA 20 WNYC. Talk to you then.