In April, at the beginning of the 2007 Major League Baseball season, I wrote a blog titled “Fenway Park, Boston, Land of the Rising Sun” about Daisuke Matsuzaka, the Boston Red Sox’s new pitching star from Japan.

At the time, Matsuzaka was by far baseball’s biggest story. The Red Sox had paid $50 million for the right to negotiate with him and $100 million more to sign him.

Management, fans and sport writers were convinced Matsuzaka was worth every dime. According to reports, Matsuzaka had not only the usual repertoire of pitches but he had two kinds of sliders, a fork ball and the never-before-seen
“gyro-ball” that was, admirers claimed, certain to baffle every hitter he faced.

Matsuzaka madness included a CD titled “Music From the Mound” that included as the first cut, “Gyro Ball, Dice-K.”

Now that October is here, it is clear that Matsuzaka fell way short of expectations. Last night at Fenway Park, Matsuzaka was bombed out of the second playoff game against the Los Angeles Angels after 4 2/3 innings during which he gave up seven hits and three runs.

Matsuzaka’s regular season record of 15-12 with a 4.40 ERA was average, at best. Down the September stretch, Matsuzaka pitched so poorly that the Red Sox considered dropping him from the play-off starting rotation.

The Boston Globe, in love with Masuzaka in the spring, wrote that his effort last night was “a $100 bust.”

Most interesting is that according Bobby Valentine, a former MLB manager currently managing in Japan, Matsuzaka has gone from hero to bum in his home country. Valentine had been an early Matsuzaka booster.

In an interview with ESPN, Valentine said that the Japanese expectations for Matsuzaka were so unrealistically high that whenever the young pitcher took to the mound, his countrymen were disappointed every time he failed to pitch a shut out.

The Red Sox say Matsuzaka is in a transitional year with better things sure to come. What else are they going to say?

But the reality is that Matsuzaka, with his indifferent performance, is in the eyes of New England’s rabid fans, just another player. And to many in Japan, he’s an embarrassment.

That’s too bad because Matsuzaka seems like a decent young man. And, after all, he didn’t generate all the hype.

But maybe Matsuzaka would have been better off personally if not financially had he stayed in Japan.

This Arizona case may mark the beginning of a new kind of illegal immigrant sob story — “Enforcement drove me to crime!” Any problem is always America’s fault for occasionally following the law.

The accused robber, Ruben Aragon Parra, must not have any known children or he would be waving them around trying to evoke sympathy. He certainly didn’t get an appealing mug shot.

Two illegal immigrants have been indicted on charges of armed robbery, theft and aggravated assault in Maricopa County.

One of them blames his crime on Arizona’s new employer sanctions law.

Ruben Aragon Parra and Salvador Antonio Monreal-Camargo are accused of stealing a truck on Sept. 13 and later robbing a man in a park.

The second victim chased the suspects in his own car and pounded on the windshield of the stolen truck with a shovel before they were arrested.

Parra told police he needed money after being laid off as a result of Arizona’s new employer sanctions law.
[Illegal immigrant blames his robbery on new employer sanctions law, ABC Channel 15, Phoenix 10/5/07]

The Arizona law requiring employers to verify a worker’s eligibility with a federal database does not take effect until January 1, 2008.

In Frontpagemag.com, there’s a debate on immigration in which Linda Chavez is taking part–she says:

Most of the people screaming the loudest in this debate have never worked one day in private industry and have no idea how Kafkaesque a world IRCA, combined with necessary civil rights protections and entirely outdated and Social Security and immigration information systems, has created for employers. I have served for 12 years on the board of directors of several public companies and have seen from the inside what problems the system creates for employers who are absolutely committed to following both the spirit and the letter of the law.[ The Immigration Debate FrontPageMagazine.com | Friday, October 05, ]

I did a column in 2002 called Linda Chavez Cleans Up With Cheap Labor which pointed out that as a member of the board of directors of ABM Industries, Inc., a major national janitorial firm, she’s working in a “highly-competitive, price-driven business. Labor costs make up 80 per cent of its overhead. “

That’s why, as I wrote then,

Linda Chavez has repeatedly preached the benefits of mass immigration, even after the Arabs hit the Twin Towers - killing 17 employees of ABM Industries , and displacing 1,200 workers.

So it’s, well, interesting to note that since 1997, she’s been director of a company that depends on a steady supply of cheap labor for its existence.

It gives you a new attitude to Chavez quotes like:

“Make no mistake: U.S. employers in many industries are desperate for Mexican and other foreign labor.” — Linda Chavez, [Those immigrants, syndicated column, February 22. 2001]

She does have a legitimate point about Civil Rights harassment of employers who check for illegals–covered both in my column about her, and in Marcus Epstein’s Indiscriminate Anti-Discrimination Enforcement: Why Is It Illegal To Check For Illegals?

Michael Blowhard notices Allan Wall’s column on the Los Angeles PAN Convention:“Mexico’s ruling party holds a convention in Los Angeles — now that gives you a warm feeling, doesn’t it? “

And adds:

* Speaking somewhat of which … I just learned that California’s population is now 50% larger than it was when I spent a year out there as a grad student in 1977; that it’s more than 300% larger than it was in 1950; and that it’s expected to reach 60 million by 2050. California is growing by around a half-million people per year, and water resources are under stress.2blowhards.com: More from Mexico

At VDARE.com, we were fairly pleased with The Hudson Institute’s recent conference “The Future Politics of Immigration”. This was mainly because it supplied us with a web cast of the clash between the arrogant dogmatism of open-borders enthusiast Diana Furchtgott-Roth and Peter Brimelow’s deeper understanding of the subject. Click here for the painfully slow-loading site: Peter’s presentation begins just under the left of the “w” of his name. (The audio quality of the Q&A improves in the latter part, at the “n” of “and”.)

But the Vanishing American blog has probably the better perspective. The ‘third great revolution’ is keyed off a Washington Times article on another panel at the conference discussing the prospect of whites becoming a minority in America. Quite correctly VA is disgusted by the complacency about this by some of the attendees. The Washington Times reports

American Enterprise Institute scholar Nicholas Eberstadt said “the United States, for all its flaws, has a pretty workable formula.”… historically, immigrants in America, over time, are able to assimilate into society and become productive citizens, inferring that the same assimilation process would take place over the next century as immigrants, and their offspring, became the ethnic majority in America.

Vanishing American responds:

So by Eberstadt’s reckoning, it really doesn’t matter who inherits America, or what remains of it; people are interchangeable ciphers, you see. The mixed multitudes who will inhabit this country will, according to Eberstadt, ‘assimilate’ and carry on. You see, America, being just an idea, does not need us; Americans are being phased out, declared obsolete.

And comes up with a reasonable quip:

Nicholas Eberstadt and the neocon ‘American’ Enterprise Institute care nothing about historic America and Americans…Judging by the content you may find at their website, they are globalist in outlook. Why they call themselves ‘American’ is a mystery; why not call themselves the ‘Global Enterprise Institute’?

A consistent strength of Vanishing American is the clear understanding displayed of why the US immigration disaster happened:

The elites engineered this change to our country, and to all Western countries; it is not an accident. Had they not wished it to happen, they could have stopped it at any point. But they continued it, and now it seems they are accelerating it, trying to be doubly sure that it cannot be reversed.

And equally what is wrong with this:

There will be no ‘American culture’ or ‘American ideals’ once the people called ‘Americans’ no longer exist as a distinct people…It isn’t about superiority, or it need not be. It’s simply about our right to go on existing, and living the way our people have lived for generations. It’s about preserving our family continuity through time; our progeny are simply our family in the future dimension. Only we can carry on our culture. No one else can do it; not Hispanics or Bantus or Hmongs or Iraqis or Somalis or whoever else our scheming elites are dropping on our doorsteps. Only we can make America, this country everybody wants to come to. America is us; we are America. We made America, and we continue to make America. America is our creation.

Vanishing American does not provide an email address, but does deserve congratulating. Reprove Diana Furchtgott-Roth and Nicholas Eberstadt.