New School Management

By Wade Lee Hudson

When it comes to understanding Wall Street, my favorite blog is The Baseline Scenario by Simon Johnson and James Kwak. When they recommend something, I usually check it out.

One reason I like their blog is that they sometimes go far afield to look at an issue from a fresh perspective. Like Kwak did when he posted “Gut Instinct Doesn’t Matter.”  and commented:

I’m no fan of the genre of CEO interviews published in the Sunday Times. But this past Sunday’s CEO-of-the-week column featured Marcus Ryu, a good friend and someone I’ve worked with at three different companies. 

Marcus is not only very smart and someone who really knows what it’s like to build a company from the ground up, but he’s also someone who has thought very hard about what it takes to succeed as a company and what a company needs in its CEO. Unlike many CEOs, he doesn’t believe in gut instinct or the magical ability to judge character. He believes that success in business is hard and, as I’ve heard him say many times, there never is a day when suddenly everything becomes easy. If you are or want to be a CEO someday, I recommend it.

I don’t want to be a CEO, but I have been very interested in “democratic management” for a long time. If those of us who want to foster lasting social change are to become more effective, we need to improve how we relate to one another. So I clicked on the link.

When I saw the title of the interview is “Finding Purpose in Tunneling Through Granite,”  I knew I wanted to read it. Deep into my second reading of The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus, I relate to the ideal of pushing the boulder up the hill repeatedly with a smile of my face
.
But little did I know that I would discover some new gems of remarkably eloquent inspiration.

Ryu, a maker of software for the insurance industry, says, “We wanted to create an enduring business with a very strong set of values. We chose integrity, rationality and collegiality.”

That got my full attention. A unique and powerful blend of core values, somewhat similar to the three that I’ve defined as the foundation of my worldview: compassion, humility, and collaboration.

Rya said, “Integrity is: simply tell the truth….  There’s never any ambiguity. We’re either going to win honestly or we’re going to not win at all, and that’s the way it’s going to be.”

In a world that is filled with lies, misleading information, and people who are afraid (often with good reason) to be honest, it’s heartening to see this affirmation in the Times. Fortunately, young people seem to be more transparent these days. A hopeful sign.

Ryu’s second key value is rationality. He wants to “make decisions based on facts and logic.” Given that commitment, “titles don’t matter, and gut instinct doesn’t matter. Even experience is of very limited value. The facts have to speak.” Consequently, one of his “mantras” is “no wishful thinking.”

As one who has only recently acknowledged my tendency toward wishful thinking, or relating to illusions, I was encouraged by Ryu’s mantra.

Ryu’s third value is “collegiality, which means minimum hierarchy.” He says, “We’re going to create a community of equal professionals.”

Wow! This is not the corporate world I know.

The history of Ryu’s latest company, Guidewire Software, is also interesting. He says that the six founders “spent the first week just pondering these longer-term questions. We said we have to consecrate our principles in a document that we will refer to over and over.”

This report also resonated with my own conclusion that it’s important for collaborators to really discuss and agree on core values, and put that agreement in writing! Just like marriage vows. Or the creed for a spiritual community.

In the past, I’ve moved too quickly and assumed common ground without first having a full discussion and reaching an explicit commitment. Never again.

My bond with Ryu deepened when he said:

The thing I most dislike in an employee is two-facedness, where they manage up in a very diplomatic and collegial fashion, but they’re a tyrant down. That’s a very common duality that you see in the business world, and it’s pernicious because you may not realize the problem for a long time. One of the great dangers for people in my kind of role is that people are always so deferential to you. They’re always so solicitous and careful about your needs that you may get the false impression that this is just the way they are, when in fact they may be just doing that only in this very narrow context, and they are different elsewhere.

Hypocrisy is hard to handle. As is being deferential to some and domineering toward others. Unfortunately, these characteristics are common in our society. If we are to grow compassionate communities that can make lasting change, we must overcome these tendencies.

Ryu’s comments on how he facilitates meetings are also interesting. He says:

We have people make a commitment to their colleagues by saying, ‘In the next day, I will achieve this.’ That is all the motivation you need. You don’t actually need any other kind of managerial layer on top of that. Just the simple fact that I have spoken in front of my colleagues and said I was going to do something, and then the next day I’m going to have to come back and say whether it was done or not, is all the enforcement and motivation you need…. 

There’s just an implicit pressure that you have to say something reasonably ambitious and substantial…. It’s just another example of trying to maximize the transparency and use this incredible power of a combination of self-imposed and peer pressure. If you have the right people, it’s actually infinitely more powerful than a command or a dictate.

The concept of a combination of self-imposed and peer pressure was new to me. It seems that with a good balance, the two can reinforce each other in an upward spiral. Another example of balance!

And no more will I be reluctant, or forget, to ask for a review of individual commitments at the end of meetings. Accountability is critical.

When asked “Do you have certain expressions you repeat often?” Ryu answers:

Another is this idea of embracing adversity. It’s been very hard to get here, and we should take pleasure in how hard it has been…. My expression for it is “tunneling through granite.” I say that we have tunneled through granite to get to this point, and there’s an infinite amount of granite left. We’ll never get through it all. So you have to decide: do you actually enjoy tunneling and want to be part of this, because I’ve got nothing to promise you besides an infinite amount more of granite. People have said it’s a little gloomy. It’s like you’re just saying it’s nothing but blood, sweat and tears forever, for all of eternity. And so I’ve tried to lighten up about that.

Well, yes. Lighten up. Keep that smile on your face. Don’t forget to love the universe. But face the facts nevertheless. Progress is never-ending and it requires discipline.

Ryu then makes it clear that he keeps his rationality in balance too. He says he has “a lot of faith in the power of words and the power of ideas.” But at the same time, “Rationality plays a very limited role in persuasion, [which is] mostly about emotion. It’s mostly about empathy, authenticity and commitment. These kinds of things are what persuade and it’s the reason that people make big decisions.”

Closing the interview, Ryu says:

One of the main things people want to hear from their leaders is optimism about the future. They want to hear truth, but when you’re talking about the future, they want to hear optimism, like: “I stand before you. I’m here for the duration. We’ve got some challenges. We’re equal to them. Nothing we have to do is harder than what we’ve had to do to get here. And we’re going to join arms and be shoulder-to-shoulder and we’re going to succeed as we never have before.” And that, in some form, is the message that you have to give every time.

Yes, we are going to succeed as we never have before. It may be slow and bit by bit. Or it may be sudden and dramatic. No one knows. All we can do is to keep on pushing and spread contagious happiness.

I’ve long had many problems with corporate America. But in recent years, I’ve discovered that the corporate world can be a source of valuable information. That was the case with this wonderful interview. I picked up on one or two new concepts, but its main value is that it reinforces the direction I’m headed. And it reassures me that I am not alone.

Why We Need to Reform Wall Street

By Wade Lee Hudson

The fundamental restructuring of our financial system is essential because Wall Street negatively impacts every aspect of our society.

Most big bank profits come from buying and selling financial instruments (“paper”) – not from making loans to businesses and consumers. With its lucrative trading in this nonproductive “paper economy,” Wall Street has helped to hollow out industrial America by sucking money out of the “real economy.” One-third of our nation’s corporate profits goes to the financial sector and that percentage is increasing.

When their speculative bubbles burst, Wall Street inflicts even greater damage on the economy. More unemployment and increased poverty result. But the big banks love instability because it enables them to make even more money, partly by betting beforehand that bubbles will burst.

Economic stagnation results in reduced revenues for local and state governments, which weakens their ability to provide vital public services.

The big banks are so important to the economy taxpayers must bail them out when they get into serious trouble in order to prevent catastrophe.

Thanks to federal subsidies that give them competitive advantages, the big banks are driving our community banks (the traditional source of loans for consumers and businesses) out of business.

Their obscene greed cheapens our culture.

Their cheating, fraud, and other violations of the law undermine confidence and encourages more of the same.

With most of the nation’s total banking assets, the biggest banks hold enormous political power. And they use their power to block positive reform, including progressive tax reform.

All of these elements contribute to social discord, widespread anger, and despair.

But if the American people unite to assure that our banks serve the public interest, we can help lay the foundation for transforming our nation into a truly compassionate community.

Big Bank News (April 2013)

BIG BANK NEWS

Published by Reform-Wall-Street.org

April 2013   Vol. 1, No. 1

Big Banks Face Fierce Heat

   The month of March witnessed a major increase in the pressure to break up the big banks, which are even more dangerous now than before the 2008 crisis.
   Contradicting the Obama Administration’s talking points, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke shifted his position and declared:

Too Big To Fail is not solved and gone. It’s still here. I agree with Elizabeth Warren 100 percent that it’s a real problem…. Too Big To Fail was a major source of the [2008] crisis and we will not have successfully responded to the crisis if we do not address that successfully.

   In a Washington Post editorial titled "Stop Subsidizing Wall Street," Thomas M. Hoenig, vice chair-man of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), called for restoring the wall between commercial and “investment” banking:

Government guarantees should be limited primarily to those commercial banking activities that need it to function: the payments system and the intermediation process between short-term lenders and long-term borrowers. Non-banking financial activities such as proprietary trading, market making and derivatives should be placed outside of commercial banks and so outside of the safety net.

   The head of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank, Richard Fisher, garnered a great deal of publicity for his three-point plan to end too-big-to-fail banks. In particular, his appearance before the high-profile Conservative Political Action Conference, where he called the big banks “crony capitalists,” generated widespread coverage.
   Local newspapers throughout the country came to the defense of local community banks that are being unfairly driven out of business by the big banks.
   Many of these papers expressed outrage at Attorney General Eric Holder’s admission that he considers megabanks “too big to jail.”
   The Cyprus bank crisis not only made many Americans worry about the security of their own deposits. It also reminded us that banks use offshore tax havens to avoid paying taxes.
   The Senate unanimously adopted a non-binding amendment calling for an end to big bank subsidies, which are ongoing.
   The Senate also adopted another amendment that would facilitate the criminal prosecution of U.S. financial institutions that break the law. [Lanny A. Breuer, the man who headed the Justice Department investigation into the financial crisis, retired and landed a cushy job on Wall Street, as is common with government officials with responsibility for regulating Wall Street.]
   More than 38,000 people joined the call on the Maryland Attorney General to strip the charter of HSBC, the bank that paid a record $2 billion for money laundering.    
   More than 140,000 individuals signed the “Tell Obama to end too big to jail” petition.
   CREDO’s petition demanding that Holder resign if he won’t prosecute criminal bankers drew more than 150,000 signatures.
   Senator Bernie Sanders announced plans to introduce legislation to break up the big banks.
   Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown and Republican Senator David Vitter said they’ll introduce legislation to raise banks’ capital requirements, which could spur them to split their operations.
   Reports that Senator Brown may become the next chair of the Senate Banking Committee caused a stir in the pro-Wall Street press.
   Senator Elizabeth Warren performed a stellar job holding officials feet to the fire.
   JP Morgan Chase, which until recently was considered the best big bank, was embarrassed by a scathing Senate report on its $6.2 billion “London whale” loss, which involved tactics to evade regulations designed to prevent risk-taking and has reinforced the argument that the big banks are “too big to manage.”
   At least eight federal agencies continued to investi-gate Chase, which is suspected of having been complicit in the notorious Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme.
   [Chase has paid $16 billion in fines, settlements and other litigation expenses in the last four years alone, which is only a fraction of their income. A mere business expense.]
   The conservative National Review quoted Bank analyst Jaret Seiberg saying, “If Congress was ever given the chance for an up-or-down vote on whether to break up the biggest banks, the big banks would lose every time.”
   On Bill Moyers and Company, former FDIC chair Sheila Bair said:

I think the system’s got incrementally safer, a little bit safer but nothing like the dramatic reforms that we really need to see to tame these large banks and to give us a stable financial system that supports the real economy, not just trading profits of large financial institutions.

   Floyd Norris, the chief financial correspondent for The New York Times wrote:

What evidence is there that playing in these opaque and complicated derivatives markets has helped banks do the job that justifies giving them the benefit of deposit insurance? That job involves the allocation of capital, the maintenance of payment systems and the protection of depositors. Why let banks play in these markets at all?

   Democracy for America, Daily Kos, and US Action launched a campaign to back legislation introduced by Senator Tom Harkin and Congressman Peter DeFazio that would impose a sales tax on financial trading. This proposal, which could bring in needed government revenues and help stabilize financial markets, sent a warning shot across the bow of the big banks.
   The New York Times reported that synthetic collaterized debt obligations (C.D.O.’s), that “were at the heart of the credit crisis more than four years ago…appear to be making a comeback,” which caused concern among those who noticed.
   A Rasmussen public opinion poll found that 50% of the public support breaking up the big banks and only 25% oppose the idea.
   A HuffPost/YouGov poll found that sixty-one percent of respondents said that banks and other financial institutions have become too large and powerful.
   Many Republicans began calling for the GOP to address its identity problem by re-branding itself as a populist party willing to take on the big banks.

What Strategy Might Work Best?

   Massive public pressure will be required to overcome the enormous political power of the big banks, who spend about $100 million a year to protect their interests, more than any other private sector. After the Senate voted down the 2010 SAFE Banking Act to end too-big-to-fail, Donny Shaw found that the 61 Senators who voted against the bill had received, on average, twice as much in campaign contributions compared to Senators who voted for it.
   A number of activist organizations are taking on the financial system. On the local level, campaigns like Occupy Bernal have prevented foreclosures. Switch Your Bank and StrikeDebt have gained some traction.
   In San Francisco, ACCE, ReFund California, and Supervisor Avalos are calling for an investigation of LIBOR fraud by big banks and its impact on city finances.
   In Oakland, a community-based campaign persuaded the Oakland City Council to stop doing business with Goldman Sachs unless that firm agrees to stop charging the city a 5.6 percent interest rate on bond debt.
   And efforts continue to organize alternative currencies and gift economies.
   Nationally, the Home Defenders League, the Campaign for a Fair Settlement, and the Take Back the People's Bank campaign have been pushing for principal reduction for all underwater homeowners and an end to all Fannie-Freddie evictions.
   On April 2, activists in more than a dozen cities across the country delivered more than 330,000 signatures to U.S. Department of Justice offices throughout the country calling on the Obama Administration to reject Eric Holder’s declaration that some financial institutions are too big to jail. Members of MoveOn, Credo Action, Home Defenders League, Campaign for a Fair Settlement, Courage Campaign and others participated in this action in a dozen cities, including Atlanta, Charlotte, Little Rock, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Sacramento, and St. Louis.
   As shareholders, a coalition of groups including the AFL-CIO, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, and the Benedictine Sisters of Mount St. Scholastica have been pressuring four of the six biggest banks to break up their operations. Arguing that the megabanks are too-big-to-manage and pointing to the diminished value of their stock as evidence, these shareholders have presented proposals for shareholder votes directing executives to explore splitting up their operations. (Local activists might build on that approach by calling on local governments and retirement boards to stop doing business with big banks that engage in both commercial and "investment" banking.)
   Americans for Financial Reform is a broad coalition that lobbies on legislative and regulatory issues.
   Senator Russ Feingold ‘s Progressives United Political Action Committee posted an End “Too Big to Fail” Petition.
   National People’s Action has affirmed that new laws should be put in place that minimize the risk of the “too big to fail.”
   The Public Banking Institute is advocating for local and state public banks like the very successful Bank of North Dakota.
   Rebuild the Dream supports a financial transaction tax, has hada  “Support for Homeowners” project, and has advocated the end of “too big to fail” banks.
   The Reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act Petition on SignOn.org garnered more than 112,000 signatures.
   Robin Hood Tax USA is calling for a march and rally in Washington, DC on April 20 to press for a financial transactions tax.
   These developments are encouraging and could feed into a national movement. But what seems to be lacking so far is grassroots organizing to call for the basic restructuring of our financial system. So long as the big banks retain their current role in the economy, their political clout will be very difficult to overcome. We need a popular force to push for fundamental reform. We need to help assure that any such reforms are meaningful.
   Early this year, Red Jahncke, a business consultant, penned a Bloomberg op-ed titled “Breaking Up Banks Is Easy When They Aren’t Failing.”  In this piece, he argued:

   The first and most obvious proof that we can lies in the 2010 bank-regulation law, the Dodd-Frank Act, which requires America’s too-big-to-fail banks to submit plans -- so-called living wills -- outlining how they can be dismantled if they get into trouble. So these banks have already provided breakup blueprints....
   Second, it has been done before. After the passage of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, big banks were divided into separate commercial-banking and investment-banking institutions....
   There is no reason banks couldn’t sell or spin off all of their credit-card operations.... Our megabanks could easily sell loans of all kinds…. Investment securities, including large amounts of U.S. Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities…can be sold with ease to reduce size….
   Branches are usually sold at a profit. For example, last May, HSBC closed the sale of 195 branches with $15 billion in deposits in northern New York state to a small bank, First Niagara Financial Group Inc.

   Our big banks inflict enormous damage on our economy and threaten even greater harm in the future. Without a strict separation between commercial and “investment” banking, taxpayers may be called on again to bail out a big bank in order to prevent an economic collapse. The federal government should provide deposit insurance only to commercial banks.
   But in an online discussion, Wilson Riles, a long-term Oakland-based activist who’s very familiar with both local and national politics, cautioned against a premature, excessive focus on national policy, which can leave activists discouraged and feeling disempowered. Riles commented:

   Significant social and political change…first starts in local circumstances and local communities in struggle…. Local efforts spur the Washington action…. Good changes that happen at local levels can quickly spread to other local communities and build understanding and loyalty. In addition visionary concepts can be honed into practicality and "successful" working examples can be well defined….
   When the change becomes a national question…there is a broad deep understanding and loyalty to the change that inspires the commitment, creativity, and sustained attention necessary to prevent blocking or even accelerate the change….
   The civil rights struggle was all taking place locally, against local ordinances and local bureaucracies, before it became a national issue…. The history of the labor movement is rooted in many local struggles. The tail end of it is the national legislation for a limited workweek, against child labor, and etc…. 

   Riles contrasted this dynamic with the U.S. anti-apartheid movement. He said:

   The actions taken at "colleges and local communities" had minimal impact on those local communities and no lasting effect. Oakland still has its anti-apartheid ordinances on the books but to no effect and with no effect on other human rights issues in Oakland or anywhere else in the world. Oakland did not have to change itself to do that.
   That is not the case with the civil rights struggle or with the labor movement. Those local communities had to change themselves and commitment, and sustainability of that change persists at the local level [and]  is not going to be easily lost or turned away from.

   Leonard Roy Frank, editor of the Random House Quotationary, replied:

   I agree with Wilson Riles. The actions taken by Oakland were ineffective because they entailed no change in the people of Oakland. Meaningful and lasting change in the community begins, or at least happens simultaneously with, change in the attitudes of the people of that community

   Reflecting on these comments, it strikes me that the change that was prompted by the labor and civil rights movements (but not the U.S. anti-apartheid movement) included changes in how people relate to each other. It seems the same can be said about the women's and gay liberation movements. We were, for example, called on to examine our submissiveness toward employers, as well as our racism, sexism, and homophobia.
   Positive personal and social changes on the local level can make a national political movement more sustainable, especially if those projects grow small, horizontal, compassionate communities of individuals who support each other in their personal development. To reform Wall Street we must transform America, including ourselves.
   How might a Wall Street reform movement learn from the labor, civil rights, women’s, and gay movements so we can have a “lasting effect” on our local communities? That is a question we need to address.

About Reform Wall Street

Reform-Wall-Street.org is edited by Wade Hudson with assistance from several colleagues. Our vision: To transform our society into a compassionate community dedicated to the common good of all humanity. Our mission: To assure that banks serve the public interest. Our primary goals:

• Impose a sales tax on financial transactions.
• End “too-big-to-fail” banks.
• Promote public banks, credit unions, and community banks.

Our primary methods:

• Use the website to consolidate, constantly update and share key information and analysis concerning the financial industry.
• Develop an informal network of individuals concerned about this issue.
• Share notifications about action opportunities.
• Support the development of inclusive, member-controlled grassroots activist organizations dedicated to this cause.
• Encourage the growth of small, supportive communities rooted in deep nonviolence whose members support one another in their personal development, community building, and civic engagement.

To be in touch, go to the site at Reform-Wall-Street.org or email wadeATwadehudsonDOTnet.

Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic…. An edifice that produces beggars needs restructuring.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

NOTE: This (monthly) newsletter reviews the news from the month of March. To receive the daily "Big Bank News," follow the blog.

Wade’s Journal

Now that I’m healthy again after a series of illnesses including pneumonia, I’d like to report on some recent developments.

Even while sick, I continued updating Reform-Wall-Street.org. I feel it’s a good site and has the potential for ever more becoming a resource that concerned individuals will find valuable. I spend at least 2-3 hours a day following the news, conducting research, and incorporating what I learn into the site.

Lately, I’ve been posting a daily “Big Bank News” with highlights and links to particularly interesting items. When appropriate, I also incorporate new information into the Problems, Solutions, Strategy, Resources, and Action pages, which are relatively static.

By the end of this week, I hope to publish the first edition of a monthly newsletter summarizing recent developments. The working title for the lead article is “Big Banks Face Growing Heat.” The opening paragraph includes, “Among elites, the month of March witnessed a major increase in the growing demand to break up the big banks. But still no grassroots organization has undertaken an effort to amplify this pressure.”

I’m also working on writing Transform America: A Declaration for Action. This document will summarize my thinking, drawing on the fruits of the re-evaluation of the progressive movement in which I've been engaged for several years. When I convened the Strategy Workshops, the Compassionate Politics Workshops, and the Social Transformation Using the Three-Fold Path Workshop, I mostly listened and learned.

Now I want to present my conclusions as briefly as possible and get feedback. The current sections are: Preface, Introduction, The System, Social Control, The United States, A Transformative Worldview (Compassion, Humility, Collaboration), Vision, Goals, Strategy, Tactics. I feel good about how it’s proceeding and hope to share a draft with you and others soon.

Ideally, afterwards we’ll form a co-equal team to re-write the declaration using wiki collaborative software (or write a similar statement starting from scratch!)

In the meantime, I’ve placed my autobiography on the back burner.

Also, I’m planning to sell my property and bungalow in Mexico. When I bought the land, it was primarily as an affordable, emergency backup retirement home. But now that I’m in an excellent, one-bedroom senior-subsidized unit, I feel secure and will be able to use the money that comes from the sale.

On a personal level, when I was sick, I often felt sad and lonely, which led me to resolve to try to improve my friendships. I persist with those efforts. The results are uncertain. I feel like I’m swimming upstream against a current of dehumanization that makes close friendships more and more difficult. At least for me.

Fortunately, being a workaholic, I feel better when I’m productive. So I’m still doing well.

Dylan

The same month I heard James Baldwin speak, April 1963, Columbia Records released The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. I bought it immediately and it totally blew my mind. Baldwin and Dylan were two back-to-back karate chops that changed my life forever.

By articulating what I was feeling, Dylan helped me better understand my world and my self. His words helped crystallize my worldview. Three years older than me, it seems he went through the same “periods” before I went through them: politics, drugs, celebration of creativity, rural retreat, spirituality, traumatic breakup, substance abuse, returning to the roots, getting grounded, facing mortality. Throughout, our values have remained much the same and he’s been my guide and mentor.

I know no one who has been as loyal to Dylan as I have. Unlike most of his fans, I never fell away. The form of his expression changed, but the substance remained the same. If he dies before I do, it will break my heart.

Still writing brilliantly, his last album, Tempest, includes rich, complex songs that prompt me to plumb the depths of their meaning like many of his earlier albums did. And his Never-Ending Tour band is incredibly tight, often offering interpretations that give songs a whole new meaning.

As did High Noon, Dylan took his genre to a whole new level with an intensity and realism never seen before. And he did it with lyrics and music that have had a profound influence. As Bruce Springsteen told the audience when Dylan was inducted at the first Rock-and-Roll Hall of Fame ceremony, “Bob Dylan did for our minds what Elvis did for our bodies. After ‘Like A Rollin’Stone,’ we could write about anything.”

In his memoir, Chronicles, Dylan explains what led him to write the way he writes. He had been drawn to the blues and traditional folk music by their depth and authenticity. He wanted to face reality, talk about it honestly, and address meaningful matters. “The highest purpose of art is to inspire,” he said in an interview early in his career. Then, after writing some songs in the style of Woody Guthrie, he saw A Three-Penny Opera by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weil and was moved to write with deep passion as did Brecht, often using narratives to tell stories.

One Brecht song in that musical likely had a strong impact on Dylan, as it has on so many others.  In “Pirate Jenny,” the narrator is a maid scrubbing floors in a hotel in “a crummy Southern town.” Gentlemen gawk at her and boss her around. A mysterious black freighter appears in the harbor and begins to fire its guns, destroying every building except the hotel. Men from the freighter come into town, chain people up, bring them to the maid, and ask her, “Kill them now or later?” The suspense builds. Eventually she replies, “Right now!” Then she boards the ship and leaves town. When Nina Simone, an African-American, sings that song, the passion is palpable. Dylan told himself he wanted to write like that.

In the liner notes for his John Wesley Harding album, Dylan tells a story that reflects his determination to tap deep feelings. Since Frank is “the key” to understanding, the three “jolly” kings ask Frank to “open it up for us” and Frank replies, “And just how far would you like to go in?” The first king replies, “Not too far but just far enough so’s we can say that we’ve been there.” So Frank rips off his shirt, waves it in the air, stamps out a light bulb that falls on the floor, punches his fist through a window, and asks, “Far enough?” The second king says, “Yeah, sure,” and the three kings leave happy. Frank’s wife asks Frank, “Why didn’t you just tell them you were a moderate man and leave it at that instead of goosing yourself all over the room?” Frank replies, “Patience, Vera.”

Like Frank, Dylan wants to take you as deep as you’re able and willing to go, recognizing that “the human mind can only stand so much,”  as he wrote in “Times Have Changed.” But like Frank, Dylan won’t do it in a moderate way. He constantly pushes limits.

Brecht’s influence on Dylan is particularly clear in two songs on Freewheelin’. After indicting the “Masters of War” for numerous crimes, Dylan declares “you ain’t worth the blood that runs in your veins,” “even Jesus would never forgive what you do,” and concludes:

And I hope that you die
And your death’ll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I’ll watch while you’re lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I’ll stand o’er your grave
’Til I’m sure that you’re dead

That song challenged me. I loved the whole album, but it took me many years to see the symbolism in those lyrics and accept the anger.

The other song on that album that reflects Brecht is “A Hard Rain’s A Gonna Fall,” widely interpreted as having been prompted by the Cuban Missile Crisis. In that song, the narrator reports on his surreal experiences in a post-apocalyptic world. When asked, “What are you going to do now, my blue-eyed son?”, he declares:

I’m a-goin’ back out ’fore the rain starts a-fallin’
I’ll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest…
And I’ll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it
And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it
Then I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin’
But I’ll know my song well before I start singin’

That determination to face reality deeply and accept it, including the fact of death, remained a hallmark of his work. But when other artists covered his work, they sometimes left out the strongest lyrics, as did Leon Russell when he recorded “A Hard Rain’s A Gonna Fall,” and didn’t include the last two lines!

The best expression of Dylan’s worldview may be captured in a long poem, “Last Thoughts On Woody Guthrie,” that he recited at a concert in that fateful month of April 1963. It includes the following passages:

When yer head gets twisted and yer mind grows numb
…
And you start gettin' chills and yer jumping from sweat
And you're lookin' for somethin' you ain't quite found yet
…
And there's something on yer mind you wanna be saying
That somebody someplace oughta be hearin'
But it's trapped on yer tongue and sealed in yer head
…
And you say to yourself just what am I doin'
…
Why am I walking, where am I running
What am I saying, what am I knowing
…
Who am I helping, what am I breaking
What am I giving, what am I taking
…
And you know that it's something special you're needin'
…
You need something to open your eyes
You need something to make it known
That it's you and no one else that owns
That spot that yer standing, that space that you're sitting
That the world ain't got you beat
That it ain't got you licked
It can't get you crazy no matter how many
Times you might get kicked
…
And yer trouble is you know it too good
‘Cause you look an' you start getting the chills
…
‘Cause you can't find it on a dollar bill
And it ain't on Macy's window sill
And it ain't on no rich kid's road map
And it ain't in no fat kid's fraternity house
…
And it ain't in the marshmallow noises of the chocolate cake voices
That come knockin' and tappin' in Christmas wrappin'
Sayin' ain't I pretty and ain't I cute and look at my skin
Look at my skin shine, look at my skin glow
Look at my skin laugh, look at my skin cry
When you can't even sense if they got any insides
These people so pretty in their ribbons and bows
…
And you yell to yourself and you throw down yer hat
Sayin', "Christ do I gotta be like that
Ain't there no one here that knows where I'm at
Ain't there no one here that knows how I feel
Good God Almighty
THAT STUFF AIN'T REAL"
…
You gotta look some other place
And where do you look for this hope that yer seekin'
…
And your feet can only walk down two kinds of roads
...
You can either go to the church of your choice
Or you can go to Brooklyn State Hospital
You'll find God in the church of your choice
You'll find Woody Guthrie in Brooklyn State Hospital
…
And though it's only my opinion
I may be right or wrong
You'll find them both
In the Grand Canyon
At sundown

Those sentiments have infused all of Dylan’s work and express precisely what I too was feeling in April 1963. When in May of that year TV’s top-rated Ed Sullivan Show refused to let Dylan perform "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues,” which lampooned anti-Communist hysteria, he walked out of the rehearsal and endeared himself to me and countless others even more.

Dylan’s determination to face reality is reflected in a poem for the liner notes to Joan Baez in Concert, Part Two, which was released in 1963. In the poem, which touches on his relationship with Baez, Dylan reports:

Later yet in New York town
On my own terms I said with age
“The only beauty’s in the cracks and curbs
Clothed in robes a dust an’ grime”
…
An’ like a blind lover bold in flight
I shouted from inside my wounds
“The voice t’ speak for me an’ mine
Is the hard filthy gutter sound
For it’s only this that I can touch
An’ the only beauty I can feel.

But suddenly one night in Woodstock he finally accepted the beauty of Baez’ voice and affirmed the value of the immaterial when he decided:

I did not begin t’ touch
‘Til I finally felt what wasn’t there
Oh how feeble foolish small an’ sad
‘F me t’ think that beauty was
Only ugliness and muck
When it’s really jus’ a magic wand…

Though Dylan embraced Baez’ voice, he continued singing in his distinctive style that has irritated so many people. At Ridge House, where I boarded as a student, we had a sound system downstairs with speakers upstairs in the lounge and dining room. Having become a Dylan evangelist, I often played his music though others constantly complained about his voice.

Now that his greatness is widely acknowledged, I’d like to tell those guys, “I told you so.” It’s not the only time that I’ve been ahead of my time.

Though I’m far from certain about it, it is my belief that Dylan chooses to sing the way he sings – because it is more evocative. Rooted in the country blues, it elicits deeper feelings than most voices do. At one concert, Dylan welcomed John Lee Hooker to the stage and introduced him as “the godfather of our music.” When accepting a Grammy, referring to another country blues singer, he once said, “Like Robert Johnson said, ‘Our music will bust your brains.’” Listen to country blues singers and the Appalachian folk singers who influenced Dylan, and you often hear voices that aren’t “pretty.” It’s the “hard filthy gutter sound” Dylan admired. Listen to Tuvan throat singing, and you hear how singers can control their voice in remarkable, guttural ways. And notice how on some songs, Dylan does use a “pretty” voice, even on his last album as his voice is getting more craggy with age. Dylan once said his voice was different on Nashville Skyline because he had stopped smoking. But one can never be sure about anything Dylan tells an interviewer. So I believe Dylan sings the way he sings because he wants to sing that way. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

So I tire of hearing people complain about Dylan’s voice or how they have trouble understanding the lyrics at live performances. In the first place, it’s not necessary to catch the lyrics for a song to have an emotional impact. I love Mexican folk music even though I don’t understand the Spanish. Singers sometimes communicate a pre-verbal experience more strongly by not enunciating the lyric clearly. And when they consider it really important for the lyric to be understood, they make the words clear. So, in my mind, I say to them, “Just relax and feel the music. And listen to the songs at home and then you’ll know the lyrics well enough.”

And it irritates me when people complain when he performs a song with a new melody or in some other way offers a completely different interpretation. If you performed the same song so many times, wouldn’t you get bored doing it exactly the same way each time?

So I don’t take well to criticisms of Mr. Dylan. And I don’t care what he’s like as individual. It’s the art that matters to me, not the artist. I’m willing to admit, as he does, that his work in the 1980s fell off when he was drinking heavily. He even titled one album, Knocked Out Loaded, which probably reflected his condition at the time. But by and large, as far as I’m concerned, Dylan can do no wrong.

Dylan’s explicitly political phase continued in 1964 with his third album, The Times They Are A-Changin’, one of several albums that I rank as among his best. Solo with an acoustic guitar, almost every song presents strong social commentary and there is no surreal comedy to relieve the mood. “The Times They Are A-Changin’” is rightly well known. But all of the other songs are great as well. In “Ballad of Hollis Brown,” a starving farmer kills his wife, five children, and himself. “With God on Our Side” concludes, “You’ll have to decide / Whether Judas Iscariot ‘ Had God on his side… If God’s on our side / He’ll stop the next war.” “North Country Blues” laments a local mine moving to a South American town “where the miners word almost for nothing” because “They complained in the East, / They are paying too high” – long before outsourcing became a major issue. “Only a Pawn in Their Game” reveals how “A South politician preaches to the poor white man, ‘You got more than the blacks, don’t complain.’” In “When the Ship Comes In,” which Dylan and Baez sang at Dr, King’s “I Have a Dream” rally,” the prophetic narrator envisions the time when “And like Pharoah’s tribe, / They’ll be drowned in the tide / And like Goliath, they’ll be conquered.” And “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” draws on a news report of a rich man who killed his maid and received only a six-month sentence (“Now’s the time for your tears.”).

Never has one album contained so many powerful political statements. Someone once told the punk rockers, “You want anger? Check out early Dylan.” Listening to The Times They Are A-Changin’ over and over has deepened my resolve to do what I can to help correct social injustice.

And the liner notes for that album, titled “11 Outlined Epitaphs,” were almost as powerful. He reflects on:

when told t’ learn
what others know
in order to lead a soothin’ life
an’ t’ conquer many a brainwashed dream

He then experiences an epiphany that leads him to

not carin’ no more
what people knew about things
but rather how they felt about things
…
an’ I’m still on that road, Jim
…
where state lines don’t stand
an’ knowledge don’t count
when feelings are hurt
…
where is the party for those kind of feelings?
how’re are the gamblers that wheel and deal an’
shuffle ‘em around gonna be got outa the game?
from here in
beyond this
an’ from now on

Over the years, I’ve read that poem to others countless times, including one roommate who was going off to college.

Later that same year, 1964, Dylan suddenly indicated a major shift with the release of Another Side of Bob Dylan. It includes a wide variety of songs, but only one explicitly political statement, the brilliant “Chimes of Freedom.” But most importantly, with “My Back Pages,” he announced that he would not be a spokesperson for The Movement. Looking back on his past, he reports that he used ideas as his map, screamed lies that life is black and white, dreamed Romantic facts, memorized politics of ancient history, failed to fear that he’d become his own enemy in the instant that he preached, allowed abstract threats to deceive him into thinking he had something to protect, defined good and bad in terms quite clear, and concludes, "But I'm younger than that now," reflecting the wisdom of childhood.

Talk about a song that challenged me! It took me decades before I could fully accept that message. I had to re-read The Rebel by Albert Camus and other work like essays in the Raritan Review that critique “ideology” before I could understand that song. Dylan declared that he was an artist, not a propagandist. Many political activists did not appreciate it. Dave Van Ronk, Dylan’s mentor, said, “We thought he was naïve.” But now Van Ronk says, “We were the ones who were naïve.” But some still don’t get it. Many of the 60’s generation, left and right, remain hung up on black-and-white ideology, rather than a multi-variant perspective that appreciates the value of various points of view. Fortunately, the Millennial Generation is trending toward pragmatic idealism.

Dylan has continued to reveal many sides to his soul with the almost 500 songs posted on his website. But the one song that will always be dearest to me is “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding.”  Some of the stronger lines are:

It’s easy to see without looking too far
That not much is really sacred
...
For them that must obey authority
That they do not respect in any degree
Who despise their jobs, their destinies
Speak jealously of them that are free
Cultivate their flowers to be
Nothing more than something they invest in
...
While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society’s pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he’s in
But I mean no harm nor put fault
On anyone that lives in a vault
But it’s alright, Ma, if I can’t please him
Old lady judges watch people in pairs
Limited in sex, they dare
To push fake morals, insult and stare
While money doesn’t talk, it swears
Obscenity, who really cares
Propaganda, all is phony
...
My eyes collide head-on with stuffed
Graveyards, false gods, I scuff
At pettiness which plays so rough
Walk upside-down inside handcuffs
Kick my legs to crash it off
Say okay, I have had enough, what else can you show me?
And if my thought-dreams could be seen
They’d probably put my head in a guillotine
But it’s alright, Ma, it’s life, and life only

Besides being one of his greatest, that song is dear to me because my mother saw him perform it live in February 1965 on The Les Crane Show. And she loved it!

Wall Street Questionnaire

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Baseball

My grandfather, Gan-gan, began grooming me for the Big Leagues as soon as I could throw. Never having had a son of his own, I was his surrogate and he was deadly serious about baseball. Fingers on his left hand were crooked from having been broken while playing catcher with a work glove before protective mitts were available in rural Arkansas (he also wiped his ass with corncobs).

We practiced every day. Gan-gan wouldn’t even let me go swimming because he thought it would deplete my energy (I never learned to swim). In grade school, he told me not to play softball because it would throw off my timing for baseball (eventually I played softball anyway).

When I was six, I joined my first Little League team. Opposing pitchers almost always walked me because I was so small. So the manager pinch hit me when he needed a runner. Then he placed me in right field, the least demanding position. But once I caught a fly ball that was hit directly at me. Everyone was thrilled, none more so than I.

After we moved to Dallas, I became a Little League super star. Due to all my advanced training, my legs were relatively strong and I was very fast. In the fifth grade, there was only one student in my class faster than me, and he was barely faster. During recess, my class would play a chase game. One person would be “it” and run after others. When he touched one, the two of them would go after others and so on, until everyone had been touched. John and I would usually be the last ones standing. Often I’d be the very last.

Partly due to my speed, I soon graduated to shortstop. One year we were playing on live television. The commentator was a pro on the Dallas minor league team. On a ball hit to the middle of the field, I ran to my left, caught the ball, whirled, threw to first, and got the runner out. When I came home, Mother told me the commentator said, “That kid’s going to be a big leaguer.”

His comment confirmed what was already a firm conviction. I was not only absolutely convinced I was going to make it to the majors. I was certain I was going to be first-string shortstop for the New York Yankees.

But Gan-gan never had me do strengthening exercises, partly because that was not the norm back then. Two brothers who were pitchers used a device to strengthen their wrists. They probably learned that from their father, who had been a minor league player and was now our Little League coach. But most players only did brief calisthenics and I was not genetically strong in my arms. And I wasn’t very limber, which is important in batting. So I hit poorly, hardly ever for extra bases.

But I was a great bunter and would sometimes drag a bunt to get on first. When I was at the plate with a runner on third and less than two out, the manager would often signal for a “suicide squeeze” (the runner runs toward home before the pitch is thrown and is tagged out if the batter misses the bunt). I almost always got the bunt down to score the run. Those were the most exciting moments of my Little League career.

At school, when we’d pick teams to play softball, I was always a captain who would choose players. I was very intense, serious, and hyper-competitive.

As a quiet, timid coward, my hero was Ty Cobb. In addition to being a great hitter, Cobb was a terror on the base paths, very fast and aggressive. He was notorious for getting an edge by sliding with his cleats high, more than willing to cut opposing players with his cleats, which would cause them to shy away.

One spring, the first baseman from another school irritated me and I decided that when we played them again, I would get on first, take a long lead, and slide back into first like Ty Cobb, and lacerate his legs. I practiced this plan for an hour or so. Come game time, I was intent on following through, but soon realized it wasn’t practical.

When we moved to South Oak Cliff, I switched teams. My new manager was Buddy Nix. His hero may have been Ty Cobb as well. He was a small, pugnacious, high-strung individual: a manifestation of the worst aspects of youth athletics. The film Bad News Bears captured the scene perfectly.

Every summer, the team would go to Houston to play a game. Driving there, the fathers raced each other, passing against the yellow line while going uphill. Their recklessness scared me to death, but they never had an accident.

Even worse than the ride down, our pants and shirts were wool and Nix insisted we wear our complete uniform, including long sleeve cotton jerseys, in the humid heat of Houston. I’ve never cared for Houston ever since.

One summer in a very important game, while playing shortstop, I made an error in the last inning that cost us the game. I was devastated. Walking to the car, I was crying when Nix walked up to me and said, “Stop crying like a baby. Take it like a man.”

By the eighth grade, I was no longer an outstanding player. My peers had caught up with my early training and our bodies began changing. I was no longer among the fastest runners. And when three players in my class were selected to play on the ninth grade team and I was not one of them, I was alarmed. My confidence was shaken.

When we practiced double plays, the third baseman would lean back, wind up, and throw the ball as hard as he could, rather than releasing the ball with a sidearm throw that would get the ball more quickly to second base, where I played. The manager should have told the him to make the throw properly but didn’t and I was nervous about it. Then one day, while the ball was headed my way I stepped on top of the bag, which raised my body relative to my glove, and the ball, which did not sink on its trajectory as much as most balls thrown by eighth graders do, hit me in the mouth. After oral surgery, my teeth appeared normal, but down deep, my plans for pro ball were fading.

Shortly thereafter, our team was playing a game and the school principal was watching. Another hard-driving sports enthusiast, he’d go on and on about “intestinal fortitude” during pep rallies.

Early in the game, I made it to first base. Hoping the coach would give me the steal sign, I took a big lead. As soon as the pitcher started to throw to first to pick me off, I’d dive back in headfirst. Then the pitcher, seeing he couldn’t get me out, would only throw the ball softly. This sequence repeated a few times, but I wanted to get as big a lead as possible and avoid any chance of getting picked off. So I kept sliding back headfirst.

From his perch, the principal yelled at me, “There’s no need to do that, son.” His comment prompted my grandfather (who was at every game) to stand up and shout to the principal, “Don’t you tell my grandson how to play baseball.”

A short while later, maybe 30 minutes, Gan-gan collapsed from a stroke and was taken to the hospital. When I arrived home, my uncle took me to a game with the Dallas team (a rare treat) and when we came home, I was told that my grandfather was dead. I assumed I was responsible because he had gotten so angry at the principal, who was angry at me.

I was in shock. The anchor in my life, the source of my meaning, was suddenly gone. But Nix had taught me his lesson. I did not cry.

Years later while a sophomore in college I went to the mental health clinic to talk about sex. After I entered his office, the psychiatrist never spoke. I don’t think he even said hello. So I just sat there not saying a word for almost the entire hour. On the second visit, I soon started talking about my grandfather’s death and my feeling that I was guilty. The psychiatrist immediately told me there was no possibility that I was responsible. An enormous orgasmic relief spread over my entire body (but I still wonder if I contributed to Gan-gan’s death).

Though I performed fairly well in other sports, I only tried out for baseball and never even thought about playing football, for I was disinclined toward violence.

When I was fourteen or so, my best friend bought some boxing gloves. We went into his garage, took off our shirts, put on the gloves, and started to box. After less than a minute, he hit me in the solar plexus and I doubled over in pain, out of breath. That was the end of boxing for me.

Even without Gan-gan encouraging me, I continued playing on my schools’ baseball teams and in college I proudly wore the letter jacket that I earned my senior year. But I played largely out of habit. The passion was gone. The dream of making it to the Yankees had evaporated and I was more interested in chess and books.

In high school, my homeroom was assigned the last row at the back of the auditorium for mandatory assemblies and pep rallies. And even though the baseball coach stood right behind us with the other coaches, I sat down during the school song to protest being forced to go to those events, which struck me as stupid. I feared the coach would punish me for my rebellion, but I don’t believe he did. I wasn’t good enough to deserve a starting position until my senior year, and even then the coach may have rewarded me for having been persistent.

I never became friends with any of my teammates, who probably viewed me as an oddball. Once I had a confrontation with Karl Sweetan, who later became a pro football quarterback and had reportedly, while still in high school, hit someone over the head with his pool stick in a fight at a pool hall. As the starting second baseman, after practice he was supposed to bring second base into the locker room. But one day while walking in, he threw the bag at me, hitting me in the chest, and told me to bring it in. I left it on the ground and worried he would beat me up for refusing. But he didn’t and got into trouble with the coach.

That’s pretty much all I remember about my high school baseball career. Not much excitement there.

But I really enjoyed intramural softball in college. My student co-op, Ridge House, fielded a team and I was the coach. One year it rained so much other teams couldn’t practice because the fields were so wet. But a parking garage being built nearby provided us with a convenient dry place to practice. So we practiced incessantly, knowing that we were gaining on the competition.

One day while hitting infield practice I knocked the ball over the fence and across the street into the back yard of the Chancellor’s mansion. I went to retrieve the ball, knocked on the front door, was let in by the Chancellor himself, walked through his house with my wet shoes, got the ball, and went back to practicing.

Even though it was fast-pitch softball and we didn’t have a very good pitcher, that year we almost won the championship.

Professional baseball fell of my radar, however. The San Francisco Giants competed in the World Series in early October 1962 but immersed in Berkeley and obsessed with sex, I hardly noticed. In the 1970s I went to a few Giants games but Candlestick Park was far away and the team fared poorly. So few fans were in the crowd I twice retrieved foul balls.

But in the late 1980s, with Roger Craig as manager, the Giants started winning and I caught the fever. Craig’s catchy motto was “Humm Baby.” On occasion, he’d have a runner on third steal home, one of the most exciting plays in baseball.

In 1989, I was standing behind home plate in the eighth inning of the final playoff game against the Chicago Cubs. The score was tied 1-1, two runners were in scoring position, and Will “the Thrill” Clark, the Giants best hitter, was batting against the Cubs’ great closer, Mitch Williams. He fouled off several two-strike pitches. The crowd was going crazy. Then Clark singled and sent the Giants to the World Series for the first time in decades.

But the Loma Prieta earthquake spoiled the excitement and eventually the Giants lost to the Oakland As in four games.

The Giants’ next manager was Dusty Baker, a soulful African-American man who often expressed his insights with homespun aphorisms. He was a new breed, a “players’ manager” who treated his team with respect and encouraged them to play music in the clubhouse, including reggae. While he was manager, each year their record improved and they did better than expected. Three times Baker was elected National League Manager of the Year.

But in 2000 in a playoff game in New York, Baker decided not to bring in a relief pitcher at a key point and the pitcher gave up a hit to lose the last game of the series. The Giants principal owner, Peter Magowan, and many fans strongly disagreed with his decision. Before consulting with Baker about his reasons, Magowan spoke with the press and criticized Baker.

After the game and on the plane ride back to San Francisco, Magowan stayed at the front of the plane and never spoke to Baker or congratulated him on a successful season. Baker was insulted, especially by Magowan’s public criticism, and let others know it.

I considered Baker’s decision not to bring in another pitcher a close call. Second-guessing such decisions is a favorite pastime, but fans tend to forget that about three times out of ten the batter is going to get on base regardless of what decision the manager makes. And managers have at their fingertips all kinds of statistics about the players involved and how they’ve done against one another in the past. So I tend to be restrained in such criticism, especially prior to hearing the manager explain his reasoning. For Magowan to have criticized Baker publicly before talking with him was outrageous.

Magowan may have resented Baker receiving so much credit for the team’s improvement, but he extended Baker’s contract through 2002 and in 2002 the Giants made it to the World Series again, against the Anaheim Angels. My sister, Mary, and I went to my first World Series game ever, at the Giants’ new downtown park.

But the excitement of being at a World Series soon wore off. We were in the left field bleachers and sitting in front of us were two large bikers from Anaheim (I never knew Anaheim had bikers!). Whenever the Angels did well, they stood up, blocked my view, and engaged in good-natured “trash talk” with nearby Giants fans. The worst part, however, is that the bikers were very quick, sharp, and witty. They won every exchange – aided by the fact that the Angels won the game handily. Not my best introduction to World Series baseball. And the Angels went on to win the series.

During the off-season, Magowan and Baker had a war of words in the media and Magowan never even offered Baker a new contract, so Baker moved to Chicago and then Cincinnati where he’s been a successful manager.

Furious at Magowan, I went to the Giants’ office to communicate my anger. The security guard wouldn’t let me upstairs, so I took off my Giants’ cap, to which I had attached several memorabilia pins, tossed it on the guards’ desk, and told him, “Give this to Peter Magowan.”

I stopped rooting for the Giants until Magowan stepped down. The Giants at that time were all about Barry Bonds anyway, and I never liked Bonds, even before the steroid controversy. To friends who said he was the greatest player ever, I argued, “No. He’s not. He’s never won a World Series because his attitude undermines team morale.” He was such a prima donna, he wouldn’t even show up for the annual team photo, which irritated players who would have liked to show the team photo to their grandchildren and say, “See. I played with Barry Bonds.”

The psychology of sports fascinates me. Since being “in the zone” is key, thinking gets in the way. In baseball, “see ball, hit ball” is the axiom. Concentration is fundamental. Some players report not even being aware of the crowd noise. Confidence and fearlessness are fundamental to success.

But perhaps most important is a primary commitment to the team rather than one’s own individual self-interest. In recent years, it seems I hear more stories about how players cultivate in each other a deep dedication to the team. This factor may be especially important in baseball, for players are with each other almost every day for eight months.

Fostering team spirit is a delicate matter. There are no tricks how to do it. But Dusty Baker seemed to have a magic touch. And after Bonds quit, the Giants learned it.

In 2010, I finally had my ultimate World Series experience. The Giants had won the League Championship with an endearing “band of misfits” that perfectly reflected San Francisco and captured the town’s love. Tim Lincecum, busted for marijuana possession. Brian Wilson, the notorious performance artist with YouTube videos that went viral and elicited praise from Governor Arnold Swarzenegger. Aubrey Huff, with his “rally thong” that he wore throughout the end of the season and displayed at the victory parade and rally.

Prior to the Series, the Giants first offered tickets to their season ticket holders. I assumed they would sell out and tickets on the secondary market would be too expensive. But one day I was home in the afternoon and received a bulk email to fans announcing that a few tickets were still available at regular prices. I jumped on it, got a seat on the first row of the upper deck right behind home plate (the best seat in the house), and got to see Tim Lincecum win the first game! Incredible!

The Giants then went to Texas and with George Bush sitting in the first row next to the field (which added a sweet touch to our victory), the Giants won the Series and I joined the celebration at AT&T Park in San Francisco.

The day of the victory parade, I took a folding chair to the parade route, which was near where I was living, and got a front row seat. More jubilation! The first ever World Series victory in San Francisco!

Baseball is my favorite sport. There’s no clock, so the pace is not frenetic. Even at the last minute, the losing team can still win. Many different skills are involved. Even very small players can be successful. There’s a balance between action and reflection. The moment-by-moment tactical decisions are intriguing. The critical subtleties of team dynamics are a challenge.

And then there’s the sense of community. Complete strangers on the street will talk with fellow fans wearing Giants’ gear, a “uniform” that signifies belonging to the community. And at games, fans, oblivious to various socio-economic characteristics, are all members of the same family and share camaraderie with one another.

It’s a shallow sense of community. But it’s fun and in a world characterized by increasing isolation, I’ll take any community I can get.

So each winter, I wait for baseball season to begin, knowing they’ll start as soon as weather permits and keep playing until it starts snowing. Play ball!