An Opening Day Manifesto (sort of)

Even though it was snowing here in Champaign-Urbana, (my Loop cohorts got 3-5 inches) there was something in the air today that let you know that today was different than last Monday. Ok wisecracks, yes, there was snow. However, there was a some kind of sensation that made you know there was baseball yesterday. It was in Philadelphia, where the defending champion Phillies dropped a game to the Braves, 4-1. Derek Lowe picthed 8 scoreless innings, which is awesome, because he's on my fantasy team.

As I always, I begin this baseball season wondering if the Cubs can do it. If you don't know what it means, pull up your favorite search engine and type in Cubs and World Series.

My excitement is tempered by last years postseason flop, even though the pundits are calling for the Cubs to claim the Central division for a third straight year. Other things have changed too. For the first time in 8 years, I'm don't live in Chicago for Opening Day. Champaign-Urbana is a hybrid of Cubs and Cardinal fans with some White Sox fans sprinkled in. Much to my dismay, no Kerry Wood on the Cubs for the first time in 11 years.

I also begin this season with one less person on my roster of Cub fans. My Nana, known to the government as Rosemary Dowling Boyle, passed away last June. When I lived in St. Louis, there wasn't a Chicago Tribune pre-season special section that wasn't shipped to me by her. As she got older and lost a lot of her mobility, she found comfort and enjopyment just sitting and watching the Cubs. She learned more about baseball after the age of 75 then I think a lot of people learn their whole lives. She would be soooo upset if she found out it was a day game and she missed it. Here are some of the great baseball Nanaisms from over the years.

• She always impersonated Carlos Zambrano's point to the sky whenever she saw it on TV. And in the last game she attended, which Zambrano started.
• "Oh hi Tim, are you watching the game?" "They played this afternoon Nana, you're watching a replay of the game." "I was wondering why it was so light! Well, don't tell me who wins . . ."
• My brother overhearing Nana explaining what an RBI was to her Filipino caretaker. Marty has never been so proud.
  
• "You know I actually saw Wood smile the other day . . ."
• "Oh! Look at coach! " Usually when Pinella had a nasty snarl on his face.
• Her trying to say Fukudome.

The Cubs have become very fashionable over the last couple years. And at times, it's irksome to go to a game and see people with Cubs beads and Prior shirts who don't know that Prior is gone, but the Cubs are so entrenched in my family roots, I can't tear myself away from them. I am watching them play the Astros right now and I can't believe I am rooting for Milton Bradley! But he's a Cub.

I know many of our loyal readers, despite your probable allegiances to the team from the Lou, have similar stories and similar feelings. Feel free to share them in the comments. I'm not going to read them, but I love when people comment on my posts. Its the only thing that gives me self-worth since they canceled Coach.

While I don't think the spike in bunting sales will bring back the economy, baseball being back is good for this country, but not good for my tendencies in putting off homework. Play Ball!

Gang Leader For A Day

In the summer of 1999, Coovo invited me to his crib in Cabrini Green where he ran his gang "The Vice Lords of Vice". I had been spending a lot of time with him there, watching as he managed a crew of 15 or so gangstas sell illegal copies of the Wall Street Journal to stock-quote addicts. On this particular day, Coovo popped open a Diet Snapple, kicked his feet up, and gave me the opportunity I'd been waiting for since he popped open that Diet Snapple - he offered me the chance to run his gang for a day. But that story will have to wait for another day...

Many of you may be familiar with the NYT Bestseller "Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything". The book is a collection of essays the authors (Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt) have penned over the years. These essays along with many new entries can be found on the freakonomics blog.

My favorite piece in that book was a collaborative effort with sociologist Sudhir Venkatesh entitled "Why Do Drug Dealers Live With Their Mothers?". The intent of the essay was to investigate the economics of inner city drug traffic, and examine a common myth that all drug dealers are rich.

The article was based on the work that Venkatesh did as a grad student at the University of Chicago in the late '80's and early '90's. With the intent of going door to door to conduct surveys of poor black families about how they felt about being poor black families, Venkatesh naively stumbled into the middle of a gang in one of Chicago's worst neighborhoods. After surviving the encounter, he was able to form a relationship with the leader of the gang, and over a period of about six years, he was able to obtain first-hand observations of Project and Gang Life.

The work, almost accidental, turned out to be ground-breaking in that, up to that point, most sociological research in the area didn't delve too much further than the evaluation of census numbers and other socio-ecomonic figures. Venkatesh heeded the advice of his subjects - that to write about them, to know them, he must "live" with them.

Gang life has always piqued my interest. Part of this is due to the fact that I can be suckered by its glorification, and part due to the fact that it is something I have never and will never know (aside from my time with The Vice Lords of Vice). For those who would like more of a peek inside, Sudhir Venkatesh's new book "Gang Leader For A Day" answers just about any question you have.

While very insightful, the essay in "Freakonomics" went only so far as to use Venkatesh's work to break down the economic model of running a crack-dealing gang. "Gang Leader For A Day" tells the whole story of the gang and its community: the kingpins, the muscle, the hoppers, the hustlers, the prostitutes, the cops (good and corrupt), the squatters, the honest, the politics of the Housing Authority, the economics and morals of the trade and everything else that makes up the cultural constitution of the Robert Taylor Homes - at ~40,000 residents it was the largest of the nation's low-income housing projects until its demolition in the mid-90's.

The book is an excellent read, and moves very quickly. I highly recommend it! And for fans of The Wire, check out Venkatesh's 9-part series on the Freakonomics blog in which he details his viewings of The Wire with gang members in New York (unsurprisingly, they all love the show, too).