John Hutchison

Barack Obama has weighed-in for his rematch with the country’s destiny. He spent last week brashly declaring his eagerness to fight for the public, but Wednesday night ditched the verbal haymakers for speed-bag lingo intended to merely nick and pile up points on the scorecards. Ringside wise guys will tell you today that as this putative champ of the American people prances through the political apron ropes, it appears any bit of fight he ever had in him may have been left back in the law library, and he’d be wise to listen for the bell to sound, because it’s maybe tolling for him.

Would that we still had the likes of old masters such as W.C. Heinz, Red Smith and Jimmy Cannon around to relieve me of having to pitifully channel an imitation of their post-fight newspaper ledes. But the president’s bite-sizing, tidbit-for-everyone performance seemed to demand a reminder of the sort of elements that comprised their columns: no-nonsense, dramatic, florid, empathetic, streetwise, wry, and often unselfconsciously sentimental. Think of it, if you wish, as an example of the frank but kindly working-class language and attitudes of the 1930s through the ’50s; you know, a harbinger of the populism-with-real-teeth that you might have been anticipating Obama’s SOTU address would finally introduce, although he did pointedly extol the virtue of “common sense” and decry Washington’s “deficit of trust,” and without the slightest irony, besides.

There’ll be more than enough criticism along these lines to wade through, and plenty still of the unaccountably fawning variety, too. So let’s talk instead about a real fighter, in deed as well as spirit, a professional whose work we can commemorate on the anniversary (as I write this) of his — to my mind — greatest fight. Of Muhammad Ali’s three tiffs with Joe Frazier, the 1st and 3d are usually mentioned. But on January 28, 1974, in a 12-round bout someone has termed The Ugly Middle Sister, Ali and Frazier met for the second time. Frazier had lost the title to George Foreman in humiliating fashion; and Ali, coming off two physically arduous and damaging fights with the troublesome stylist, Ken Norton, was at the lowest psychological state of his career, worse than even the period when he was barred from boxing for refusing to cooperate with the military draft.

Ali had avenged a loss to Norton and defeated him in the second fight. But he was unhappy with his performance and for the first time had begun questioning his ring skills — to the point that he seriously considered calling off the Frazier match. He had fought 13 times since reemerging after 44 months of disbarment, and had lost only to Norton. What ultimately propelled him to proceed against Frazier — apart from having been defeated by him in their fabled first encounter — was the obvious fact that it was necessary in order to get a shot at Foreman’s title.

The second Frazier fight, and not his return after his suspension, marked the actual beginning of the second half of Ali’s career. Despite the layoff, Ali was only 28 when he re-emerged in 1970, and had never been seriously hurt. Joe Louis, for example, lost more than four years to WWII and then successfully defended his title four times. It was the damage inflicted by Norton in their two meetings — a broken jaw and a severely sprained right hand, added to the many hits he took — that accentuated the accumulating years for Ali and provided him his initial sense of ring mortality. At his training camp a despondent Ali remarked to a visitor, “You see any people around here? People don’t hang out with losers.”

And yet he trained hard for Frazier and was in shape. The dancing master was in evidence through the first half of the fight, on his toes, circling, sticking and floating. The judges’ cards had him winning four or five of the first six rounds. In the sixth Frazier began scoring with hooks, started verbally taunting and gesturing toward Ali, and only barely lost the round when Ali closed with a spirited last-second effort.

The next two rounds were all Frazier: bobbing, ducking, swarming with incessant headlong rushes, his hooks were landing with staccato thuds. The pressure was relentless, and Ali, now no longer dancing but retreating to the ropes, must have been revisiting the last Norton battle and the way in which he had slowed in the middle rounds and Norton had pursued and scored repeatedly. But there was something else about that fight that was significant, and what Ali had done next plumbed all of his natural athletic instincts and repertoire as a fighter. At the very least it was uncharacteristic of his style, and clearly a stopgap move. In the closing seconds of the final round Ali had practically ceased all movement, planted his feet and traded freely with Norton. It was effective enough to win him the decision.

So late in the eight with the momentum all Frazier’s, from the corner came shouts from Angelo Dundee, Ali’s trainer: “Stay there! Stay there!” Stop moving, stay in the center of the ring, plant your heels, throw the left, the right, double the combinations if you can, then tie him up. Stay. Plant. Left. Right. Double up. Clinch. Don’t back up. Don’t back up. And Ali listened; and in the ninth round literally commenced the second half of his career. The legs, which had taken him to renown, were now obviously only a part of the arsenal. The voluble, headstrong, mercurial legend with the outsize ego and his own unwavering ideas on the techniques of boxing had, in the exigencies of the situation, incorporated another skill set into the mix. With everything on the line — his pride, his fame, another title shot — all seamlessly rolled into that inimitable self-regard, in that instant he became a complete fighter. Ultimately, the best of athletes become that way because they prove to be coachable, and Ali was no exception.

The ninth, in my estimation, was as fine a single round as Ali ever fought. He went the entire three minutes essentially standing in place and punching, with Dundee continuously screaming, “Stay there!” Watching it was to witness the very best in the lineage of boxing history filtered through one man. Ali’s admitted influences had always been apparent: Gene Tunney’s timing and ability to gauge distance; Ray Robinson’s hand speed and lancing jabs; Willle Pep’s incomparable evasiveness and defense. Then in the final minute of the concluding 12th Ali put it — and them — all together in spectacular fashion, landing upwards of 40 times in those 60 seconds with a furious medley of flat-footed combinations.

Styles make fights, Dundee was always fond of saying, and his guy that night sculpted a new one out of the gifts of the gene pool, all that he had learned, and his genius for improvisation. It was a vision of pure will and eclectic combativeness, physicality and prowess honed to a singular moment, without an ounce of awkwardness, and breathtaking in its precision. Perhaps it even rhymed. Long after he named himself The Greatest, Ali had gone one better, and had become the consummate journeyman.

I watched it again right after viewing the chief executive of the United States present an urgent comprehensive policy review as the equivalent of ladling out piecemeal sops to those he would continue to placate and those from whom he would curry favor. It’s worth speculating how Heinz, Smith and Cannon — chroniclers of an era of similar destitution and war — would decipher our present circumstances. Lived perspective, certainly, would be at their disposal. Numerous examples of perseverance, daring, excellence, integrity, as well the lack of same, had been the substrate of their reportorial encounters. And they had distilled them accordingly in their work. Boxing, with its primal attributes, could indeed be a most instructive metaphor. And then of course the hardscrabble times in which they came up and the bold manner in which the country had eventually prevailed, forever seared their generation. But as to how they might address Barack Obama specifically? Well, doubtless an assessment would be willingly ventured, and however candid and tough their language could be, they remained generous and fair-minded men. I suspect they’d simply caution him to listen, really listen, listen as if everything imaginable depended on it, hear the shouts and then finally adapt, because to not get out of the corner is to guarantee that it’ll all be over very quickly.

Site Search Tags: Ali, boxing, Frazier, Obama, politics, sports, State of the Union

What does it augur for the future that the Republicans have come up with some comic book inanity that casts Barack Obama as a socialist? I suspect that it will further amplify the conclusion the media reached in midsummer when they finally woke to the realization that Obama was in fact a conventional, decidedly centrist politician, harboring the timeless characteristics of caution, expediency, ambition, vanity and no little tactical ruthlessness.

Indeed, the late-campaign McCain mudslinging has exacerbated the main consideration an Obama presidency would have confronted anyway: Thwarting any tendency to fashion and implement “change” that might be construed as moving too far left from his carefully crafted neoliberal posture. Not only would Republicans resist such attempts, but the Democrats with House and Senate majorities, as Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter learned, are no guarantors of aid to any presidential agenda that could jeopardize them politically. Also, Carter enjoyed a filibuster-proof Senate advantage. Obama supporters, of course, covet similar electoral leverage as a sort of talisman which will usher in the change-juggernaut they’ve been blissfully hearing about for nearly two years.

Under such conditions, Obama will revert to what he has always essentially known would be the outcome, if elected: He will govern like Bill Clinton. I’m certainly not alone in believing this, it seems, and Obama, in lauding Clinton the other day, left the implication that perhaps no one should be surprised to find that this could be a possibility. In effect, the “reaching across the aisle” Obama trademark is a fit with the classic Clintonian dialectic: (1) Postulate, (2) Retreat, and (3) Reassert. Then halve the difference, and assume the resultant laurels. Clinton was, and remains, a master of political illusion, and in Obama we’ve increasingly been detecting a worthy successor.

My initial instinct some three years ago about Barack Obama was immediate and succinct: Endlessly conflicted. That was from the gut: Since I come at Obama with probably a singular prism — I’m a former community organizer as well, and also trained in the Saul Alinsky methodology — that assessment was born, symbolically and literally, out of the Alinsky tutelage. Above all, he taught us how to listen. Which meant that timbre and intonation begat motive and that begat total portraiture, if you were really paying attention. On the street or in a corporate boardroom. And what I heard from Obama was the diction and precision and sensibility of an upper middle-class academic; a writer with a gifted lyrical style; and a distinctly moderate politician with an obvious sense of his own self, how that played out in the world, and the ambition and willingness to package that persona to greater gain. What I detected simultaneously, and what my subsequent reading of his books confirmed, was that the racial component in his life was for all intents and purposes, moot. I didn’t have the slightest doubt about it; this was someone who was indeed post-racial, in attitude, inclination and perspective. What Obama had personally breached was that plateau where race had now far less consequence and implication, and where the crucial element that remained for the nation —  and Barack Obama — to finally address was class.

Class. We’ve hardly heard the word used these past two years. Even John Edwards never actually used it, that I can recall. And class is the direction, the utterance, in which Obama has not been able to go, until very recently. It’s the source of the pervasive conflict I see in him, and only the onset of the financial crisis in September provided him sufficient cover to finally express any specific populist rhetoric. The crisis spared him from having to test himself again in Appalachia, where Hilary Clinton bested him. Could he finally “close the deal”? It’s useful in this context to regard those contests not as primaries, but rather as a series of local union elections, where respective memberships were offered two questionable candidates that they had absolutely no illusions about. In each case, they chose the person they thought could go up against the employers and get them their contracts. At turns diffident, supercilious, evasive, mendacious, Clinton could be Big Nurse incarnate, and yet it’s never seemed to me that Obama was the antidote to her.

From the start the operatic rhetoric of Obama has been ceaseless with appeals to end divisiveness, with little more than Rodney King–ish “Can’t we all get along?” supplication. Obama offered no methodology, no approach, beyond paeans to the nobility of our “common purpose.” Once you dispense with race relations as the determinate social problem facing the country, as Obama has, any remaining color line dividing us then presumably becomes green — as in money and, you guessed it, as in class. And since mid-September we can reliably locate that dividing line in America in the chasm between those who have capital and those who are at the mercy of capital.

Since the credit crisis began there’s been general agreement that it’s saved the election for Obama. But his skein of luck began with the caucus primaries, and that impact abides, because he wouldn’t be the nominee had his adoring, youthful legions not packed those caucuses. They’ve truly served Obama well, expressing hardly a discouraging word to the candidate about his taking copious contributions from nuclear, coal and Wall Street interests. And they’ve furnished him, gratis and intact, the AfroCelt/WorldBeat/LinkTV/Facebook/Twitter “transformative” narrative and identity which for many months held the media in thrall, and which a Boomer like Obama would not naturally assume.

The Obama cadres may well take him to victory, and yet they’ve demonstrated their considerable power by registering their displeasure with him over the FISA vote and the other supposed issues of high principle he swiftly caved on this summer. His supporters’ use of the Obama official website must have evoked a tinge of familiarity for Obama. Saul Alinsky had two overarching cardinal rules: (1) Never pick a fight you can’t win; and  (2) Be prepared to work yourself out of a job. The latter can also translate as Obama’s oft-repeated admonition, “It’s not about me; it’s about you.” Indeed, the successful organizer inculcates a sense of self-mastery and an understanding of power to the group, and in the end he himself is disposable. It’s a trenchant metaphor, to be sure, and as an Obama presidency proceeds and his cohorts possibly come to realize he’s not the promised avatar, the most formidable and proven electronic networking tools imaginable can readily be put to other uses.

But it’s Alinsky’s first rule which necessarily dominates. Obama picked the fight. And what were the stakes? Twenty million African Americans who vested in him everything they have, pushed all their chips into the middle of the table, prepared to lose it all, to take the hit one more time. And he knew they’d do it, for all the obvious reasons. The stark fact was, he had never thought it through, never considered all the ramifications. As I watched him stride into the streets and black churches of the South and mimic the cadences of the street corner and the pulpit, intimating that there’d be an eventual payoff as exchange for their votes, I knew that this guy would proffer no special consideration for African Americans, because he’d said as much elsewhere, and moreover had distilled it into a published formal canon. The unforgivable part is that in eschewing race and identity politics he seemed incapable of substituting the one vector, class, which held the possibility of transmuting his change mantra from tediousness to reality. That’s what Jackson and Sharpton did. Class-consciousness. Rainbow Coalition stuff. Class equals Militancy equals Black Anger. Don’t need any of that. The endless conflict unresolved. And we’ve seen Obama assiduously avoid any invitation to meet with prominent black public policy people or academics.

But, of course, in recent days he’s utilized the protection of the financial meltdown to quite substantively address the concerns of working people. Beyond tomorrow, does he attempt to maintain this pattern, or does he ease into the Bill Clinton slipstream? I’d like to think I’m wrong about the Barack Obama I see, that the sharp shards of visible ambition, calculation and cynicism don’t denote just another yuppie on the make, but instead cloak genuine emerging stature. I do know this: We were trained by the same man to size up people. And so I’ll ask: Did I get it right, Mr. President?

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It’s the old question, What’s in a name? Well, if it concerns a local sports facility with a very malleable identity, the answer likely explains the worsening problems its tenants have experienced during the past four years.

And so it was that, on the occasion of the first rebranding of naming-rights for our ballpark, from Pac Bell to SBC in early 2004, I published the following letter in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Editor — The Jake, the Bob, the Pink, the Maid. Delete from those examples the Bell, the beloved shorthand Giants’ fans use to humanize corporatized ballpark signage.

3Com imploded here, as will SBC Park, despite our new phone company’s belief. But because the name change won’t finalize until March, why not give SBC one last chance to get to know us?

It’s simple: They add an “e” to “Bell,” and the stadium becomes SBC’s Pacific Belle Park. The obvious association of the modified word with the uniqueness of ballpark and city alike should spur even the dullest corporate cognition.

Regardless, fans will keep the faith. We should insist news outlets use the Belle in their reportage. We can produce our own signage, with T-shirts and other products: “It’s the Belle for our ball!” (But you get the idea.) Proceeds could go to charity.

It’s consummate good neighbor policy for SBC. Their apology alone proffers unheralded P.R. value. Or will we instead look back and regret that there hadn’t been a comparable cinch since Bill Buckner stooped to conquer?

The Chronicle Sporting Green, in short order (and purely coincidentally, I was later informed), proposed a name-change contest to the fans. As it happens, Giants’ management, at the no doubt subtlest SBC suggestion, prevailed upon the paper and (full disclosure here) my old friend and former Examiner colleague of 30 years earlier, sports editor Glenn Schwarz, to cancel the contest after two weeks.

The Belle name, I might add, led the voting when the contest was shut down. Coming at the heels of Candlestick reemerging as the inglorious 3Com Park, local fandom’s distaste for sports facilities as corporate billboards had become quite pronounced, if not vehement. As for me personally, we’ve all known people in our lives who’ve tried to play God, but who do you know who nearly named a ballpark?

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Certainly corporate signage hasn’t augured well for baseball. It’s fast approaching ludicrousness when no high point of on-field action can be described without prefacing and conjoining it with corporate sponsorship. But we’re faced with something far more ominous right about now.

Indeed, we find our local nine wallowing last in both leagues for home-field winning percentage. The reason should be obvious. The second rebranding of naming rights for the ballpark, in 2006, went to AT&T. Uh huh, that bunch that illegally assimilated billions of Americans’ phone calls, voicemails and e-mails from 2001 to 2006 and made a mockery of the Fourth Amendment at the behest of a president who has intimated that he receives divine inspiration daily, are the same crew that was given immunity from private lawsuits last week with the passage by the House of the FISA Amendment Bill.

In a nutshell, that’s where the jinx lies, gang.

I mean, how could it be otherwise? The great social laboratory and legendary mecca for political inclusion which is the city of San Francisco is attempting to win baseball games in a facility named after handmaidens of domestic espionage who unquestioningly took their orders from a man whose last name ought rightfully to be pronounced C-e-a-u-s-e-s-c-u. You’ll forgive me for not putting too fine a point on it.

So how do we best proceed? A glib first thought might be a pertinent re-shaping of the Ballad of Joe Hill: “I dreamed I saw Zito w-i-n last night.” Hmm, maybe not so glib, at that. Zito has the acoustic guitar, he sings, the refrain could be a helpful pre-game mantra, and. …

Surely we’re due for another fan name-change convocation. Not China Basin or Mays Field or the Belle, again, but something along the lines of, for instance, Data-mine Park, Eavesdrop Field, Surveillance Stadium. And, of course, we can utilize a multiplicity of venue names. A(ssholes) T(hrough) & T(hrough) could possibly be one of them. I invite your suggestions, and I’ll list them.

Given our particular ethos and proclivities, it seems we’re tasked with nothing less than rubbing the nose of AT&T into its own merde. T-shirts, caps, sweatshirts, viral videos, our own infrastructure signage, on-site performance art (who could resist that fab “Wiretappers” dance troupe!), visible boat-mast banners, etc., serve us well. We decidedly encapsulate a certain sensibility here, inclusive of the Yippie “mindfuck” lineage of 40 years ago. It all could be as historically momentous as, for example, Wally Pipp taking the day off.

The possibilities are delicious, and foremost among them, I would think, should be repetitive real-time (as in, game-time) acknowledgment of the incalculable contribution of former AT&T technician Mark Klein, who blew the whistle on the data-mining “secret room” Big Brother NSA had installed in the telecom‘s offices here, one of at least 15 similar sites around the country. The future will deem Klein deserving of Mt. Rushmore–equivalent status, frankly, and meanwhile I’m personally prepared to take my turn in draping his visage over, say, the Arcade wall next to Mel Ott’s number, or anywhere else in the yard where genuine Giants’ heroes and friends are displayed.

Overall, our complementary objective with this exorcism is to get our guys out of their home field slump. But given the context in which they’re enmeshed, the methodology of payback is in order. Think of it as that crucial 7th inning of the final day of the 1982 season against the Dodgers, with Joe Morgan at-bat. Except that now, Tom Paine is pinch-hitting for him, and Sam Adams and Tom Jefferson are the baserunners.

As an advisory, it’s well to bear in mind that nothing in the new FISA bill precludes the great “Decider” from designating anything he wishes as threats to national security, and nothing in it that stops him from immediately siccing these immune telecoms onto his targets without need of a warrant. And as I upload this piece into the ether a few minutes from now, I’ll definitely have that in mind, as should anyone desirous of partaking of what I’ve laid out. Who knows how the tinky minds that have set loose the scumbaggery of usurping the Constitution these many years might react to a variety of nonviolent but necessarily caustic playfulness intent upon illumining the dire condition in which this nation finds itself. To say nothing of the plight of the Giants.

The plate’s been dusted off. Let’s get under way.

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