2023
March
10
Friday

Monitor Daily Podcast

March 10, 2023
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Linda Feldmann
Washington Bureau Chief

Jeremy Peña, star shortstop for the Houston Astros, looked stunned. He had just been called out on strikes without even receiving a final pitch – and that was precisely the problem. Mr. Peña had failed to be ready in time.

We in the stands at Florida’s Ballpark of the Palm Beaches were confused. “What just happened?” we wondered, if not verbally, at least with our eyes.

This, we soon realized, is life with The Clock – one of many new features and rules now in effect in professional baseball to speed things up and make the game more exciting.

To be blunt: The national pastime had gotten boring. Pitchers were taking forever to pitch. Batters were taking forever to settle in to actually, maybe, hit the ball. Games were dragging on and on. And owners were feeling it in the bottom line, with attendance in steady decline.

“Bring a good book,” I would advise anyone going to a game.

The Clock can be mesmerizing. There’s now a 30-second limit between batters. Pitchers have 20 seconds to pitch if there are runners on base, 15 seconds if not. Batters must be ready at home plate with eight seconds to go. If a pitcher violates The Clock, he’s charged an automatic ball. An unready batter gets an automatic strike.

I found myself sometimes watching The Clock and not the actual players. But, like the players themselves, we’ll all soon get used to the new normal and ignore The Clock, as we do in professional basketball and football.

The impact has been immediate. Games are now, on average, a half-hour shorter. The Astros-Red Sox game we attended March 1 lasted a reasonable two hours and 26 minutes, albeit ending in an unsatisfying 4-4 tie. (No extra innings during spring training.)

So, kudos to Theo Epstein, the genius who helped both the once-benighted Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs overcome their “curses” and win the World Series. Mr. Epstein was hired by Major League Baseball to save the game itself, and through smart analysis and advice from focus groups, he may have succeeded.

And with that, play ball!


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Today's stories

And why we wrote them

Dominique Soguel
Mykhailo (second from right) and his men await evacuation from the front-line town of Chasiv Yar, Ukraine, March 8, 2023.

Whether Russia or Ukraine wins the battle for Bakhmut, heavy casualties mean it will be a Pyrrhic victory. Russians are fighting for a symbol; Ukrainians are fighting for their home. 

Amir Cohen/Reuters
A Saturday night demonstration protesting against the religious-nationalist government's judicial "reform" plans, in Tel Aviv, Israel, March 4, 2023. For several weeks, the Saturday night crowds have grown, augmented by midweek protests at scores of locales across the country.

Among the Israelis protesting the government’s proposed judicial “reforms” are members of two groups prized by Prime Minister Netanyahu for their contributions to the country: the high-tech sector and military veterans. Does that give protesters leverage?

The United States is gripped by sharp disagreement about when activism tips into lawlessness. This week, left-wing protesters in Atlanta were charged with terrorism, laying down a new marker in the debate.

A dozen years after a nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan, a group of concerned mothers show how engaging the public, rather than dismissing its fears, can foster a sense of trust and safety.

Podcast

Oscars: Black Hollywood’s long climb continues

Who will leave the Academy Awards ceremony Sunday with a statuette? Bigger questions for commentator Ken Makin: Who got passed over? And what does that say about the film industry’s recognition of cultural clout?

‘The Envelope, Please’

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The Monitor's View

Plenty of Nigerians hoped that their recent presidential election would set a new high bar for democracy – not just for their country, but for all of Africa. Yet when it came time to vote, polling stations were disrupted by violence and ballot shortages, turnout was low, and the electronic system designed to prevent counting fraud faltered. The ruling party candidate, Bola Tinubu, whose campaign slogan was “It’s my turn,” won with just 8.8 million votes in a country of 220 million people. 

A familiar tale in many democracies, perhaps, but a misleading one. For the first time in nearly 20 years, there is evidence that “the world’s long freedom recession may be bottoming out,” according to Freedom House in its latest global survey. Political rights and civil liberties gained ground in 34 countries and lost in 35 – the narrowest gap since 2005. After tracking such data for a half-century, Freedom House finds “heartening proof that democratic progress is always possible.”

“So long as human beings remain true to their natural yearning for liberty, authoritarians will never be secure, and the global movement for democracy will never be defeated,” the report stated.

A few factors help explain the shift on rights and liberties. As countries have emerged from the pandemic, basic freedoms have been restored. Russia’s aggression in Ukraine has stirred democracies to a more vigorous defense of shared values. In every region, the report found, authoritarian regimes are facing growing popular backlashes against corruption, state violence, and controls on dissent.

The usual benchmarks for democratic progress are clean and fair elections with accepted results. The few examples in Africa underscore the continent’s potential for further democratic gains “if the virtuous circle of free elections and policy improvements is allowed to take hold.”

That is why Nigeria’s Feb. 25 election matters. The public’s frustration – women, for example, felt particularly excluded from seeking office – has not dampened a desire for change among its people, despite the low turnout. Nearly 40% of Nigerians registered to vote were under 35. Like most African youths, they are slowly disrupting an entrenched political order. Linked by social media, many reject political apathy.

“There is still something to be said about the palpable hope among Nigerians, especially the youth who took a leap of faith in the country, came out to vote, and in some cases, returned to polling units that had been attacked by thugs,” wrote Busayo Akinmoju, a Nigerian university student, in the The Republic magazine.

That persistence, he adds, signals “a renewed belief in the value of political participation. The youth got it right this time by showing up to make their voices heard, and in doing this, they moved the needle of change an inch in the right direction.”

In a country with few public services, “Nigerians’ self-organizing impulse is what has been preventing Nigeria from becoming a failed state,” according to a new Brookings report on Africa. “They go about their daily business ... trying to earn a living, get an education, create a career path, find a spouse, raise children, and just generally, make meaning of life.” The report recommends creating fewer big government programs and simply letting “non-state actors” continue to flourish.

Despite the ups and downs of democracy around the world, Freedom House finds, the number of pro-democracy protests against autocratic rule shows “the people’s desire for freedom is enduring.” Nigeria is a prime example.


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

When “the things of life seem / like too much,” we can lean into our true, spiritual nature as God’s children – inherently joyful and free – as this poem conveys.


Viewfinder

Molly Darlington/Reuters
A contestant in the Crufts dog show in Birmingham, England, sits in the snow on arrival day, March 9, 2023. The Crufts show, which began Thursday and continues through Sunday, attracts more than 18,000 entrants and hundreds of thousands of attendees annually, according to the organization. Its events are also broadcast internationally.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Karen Norris. )

A look ahead

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