What we’re missing

It’s almost the end of the semester.  Tomorrow my Intro to Politics students will put the finishing touches on the new constitution for the human colonists on planet Kepler 452b.  It won’t be a polished document — it’s being written by a committee of 37 novice politicians in a big hurry. And some of the most creative ideas have already been rejected. But still, there’s considerable potential among the pieces adopted and yet to be considered.

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So I was primed to notice Alfonso Tusa’s article in The Hardball Times, “The Kangaroo Court and Frank Robinson.”  Here’s how it starts:

In regular life, there are many informal ways of processing and policing failures in human behavior. In baseball, it’s called the Kangaroo Court…

For the court, nothing goes unnoticed: missing a sign, tripping on a foul line, wearing an ugly suit. Once, Vince Coleman was fined for allowing a rival to borrow his glove. He lent his glove to Willie McGee, a former teammate, who had his equipment stolen at Shea Stadium. Coleman had to pay $10 for each ball McGee caught. Total fine: $30. The Mets punished Alejandro Pena for shaking hands with Dave Magadan, thinking the game was over. Houston’s Steve Finley, after helping beat New York, was fined for appearing on the Mets’ postgame radio show. Cleveland’s Albert Belle was demoted to the minors for not running out a ground ball, and soon after, Cleveland created a court for guidance.”We’ll take care of it if it happens again,” catcher Sandy Alomar Jr. said. “If he doesn’t run, it’s going to cost him a lot of money. The manager won’t have to say a thing. Everyone will tell it to his face.”

This article obviously raises three key points for the EFL:

• 1. Did the Indians’ kangaroo court had any effect on surly, troubled Albert Belle?
• 2. We have Kangaroos. Thirty of them!
• 3. Shouldn’t we — out of all the human polities in the world — have a Kangaroo Court?

OK, since I’m in PSCI 150 mode, a little lesson.

The EFL is a polity:  a human decision-making group.  All polities do politics (the practice of decision-making in human groups). The study of politics therefor should inform us about the EFL.

Long ago political philosophers discerned that governance has three basic functions: the legislative, the executive, and the judicial.  The EFL has a highly functional legislature: its membership.  You can tell we are high functioning because we do it so much and have amassed so many rules.

The EFL has a distinct and energetic executive. We have a Vice Commissioner or Treats who executes the function of bringing us treats. We have a Vice Commissioner of IT (and maybe now an Assistant Vice Commissioner of IT) who executes our database and stuff.  And we have a Commissioner whom every owner at some or other has wanted to execute.

But our judicial function is stunted.

An EFL Kangaroo Court would solve the problem. According to Tusa,

The man who presents a charge has to bring a witness to support it. An accuser who can’t prove the charge has to pay the fine…

… People sometimes got the purpose confused. It wasn’t to bully people. It was to get them to thinking about the game.”

In the EFL, a Kangaroo Court would help us all improve our performance as general managers.  Say someone wastes a second round pre-emption on Arismendy Alc…

No we talk about that one too much already. Let’s try something more recent:

Say a veteran owner assigns James Pazos to be his left-handed reliever, but doesn’t notice the Phillies sending Pazos to the minors the day before the season starts. So the EFL team goes through the longest month in EFL history without a left-handed reliever, accumulating 1/3 inning of replacement pitching for every game played. By the end of the month that will be at least three entire games worth of replacement pitching (unless Pazos, currently on waivers, magically appears for 1/3 of an inning before April is over).

Maybe about 30 innings of replacement pitching is punishment enough.  But couldn’t we all use more tangible reminders not to commit EFL malpractice?

So one question remains. Frank Robinson has been dead for about 10 weeks now.  He can’t be our chief judge. .

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But who needs Frank Robinson?  We have an actual Kangaroo! Who has been to law school and is a member of the bar!  Better than Frank Robinson!

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