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LeRoy sculptor turns garden into art gallery open to the public

By Howard B. Owens

The Democrat & Chronicle profiles LeRoy resident and sculptor Adriana Slutzky.

Slutzky's work has been featured in museums and galleries of the region, but it sounds like the best place to see her work is in her and her husband Jack's wooded backyard along Oatka Creek.

This Dutch-American artist had always relied on her high energy level — a necessity for anyone building large-scale sculptures that weigh several hundred pounds. In the past four years, she and Jack created a four-acre sculpture garden around their home. Open to the public, it features more than 40 of her highly accomplished pieces.

Much of that art celebrates female vitality. After her Jan. 24 stroke, Slutzky feared losing her own resilience. She's often fatigued and her blood pressure rises sharply at times.

"It's not the same for me," she says. "I understand I'm walking on the edge."

Now 65, she brings that heightened sense of urgency to her most recent garden sculpture. Full Moon will feature 28 female figures circling around a pool of blue glass.

"Maybe we'll have a ceremony when it's finished," she says. "We'll invite our friends to have a beer and howl at the moon."

The Slutzkys began the garden as an unorthodox open-air showcase for her work. Their heavily wooded property slopes from Oatka Trail to the trout-filled Oatka Creek — an arcadian setting with sculptures atop flower beds and patios.

"I try to fit in the art so it's a natural extension of the environment," says Jack, 71, a painter and writer.

A Google search turns up this photo by C.G. Hubbell of Diversity sculpture in Maplewood Park.  Rocwiki has an entry on The Seat of Forgetting and Remembering.

Introducing Buy, Sell, Trade

By Howard B. Owens

When we launched the Free Job postings, a couple of people suggested that we have a place for people to sell stuff.

Today, we're launching Buy, Sell, Trade -- free classified ads.  Any person registered with The Batavian can post ads for free. The ads must be posted by private individuals, not businesses, but can be for any physical goods.

So you guys that requested this -- please post some items to get the ball rolling!

UPDATE: Ooops, forgot to enable permissions for logged in users to be able to post a classified.  Done, now.  You can post by clicking here.

Muckdogs manager likes developing young players

By Howard B. Owens

Muckdog's manager Mark DeJohn gets a favorable write up from the Centre Daily Times, the newspaper that covers the State College Spikes.

What would the 2008 State College Spikes resemble if Curve Baseball LP decided to extend its Player Development Contract with the St. Louis Cardinals after 2006?

The answer to this question rests in Batavia, N.Y.

For starters, they would have the same manager. Mark DeJohn, whose fiery moments left lasting impressions in State College, manages the Cardinals’ New York-Penn League affiliate for a fourth straight year.

...

“I think it’s good to be young so you have some time to develop,” DeJohn said. “I prefer the high school guy over the college guy as long as the tools are the same. It gives us a chance to take them for four, possibly three, years that he would have been in college and kind of teach him our way of playing and how to play the game a little bit better than how they are taught in college.

“There are growing pains with it. We make mistakes like everybody else, but that’s what you are here for, to teach them and you have to learn from experience. I like the fact that they are young because then it tells me that you have a future with some of the guys.”

Speaking of player development, Philadelphia Magazine profiles Chase Utley and his wife Jen.

Batavia has fine showing in state journalism contest

By Howard B. Owens

The Batavian's Philip Anselmo garnered two awards in 2007-08 New York State Associated Press Association writing contest.

He won a first place award for Business/Finance coverage and shared a third-place award in the Continuing Coverage category.

Prior to joining The Batavian, Philip was a staff writer with The Daily Messenger in Canandaigua, where he wrote his award-winning pieces.

The Daily News also made a fine showing in the contest.

  • Spot News -- 3rd Place:  Family of four killed in head-on crash. Paul Mrozek, Scott DeSmit
  • Sports -- 3rd Place:  A lot of guts, a little glory. Tom Rivers
  • Columns -- 2nd Place:  Town supervisors, village mayors, define the working poor. Tom Rivers
  • Arts/Entertainment -- 1st Place:  It’s hip to be a ’Chuck.’ Ben Beagle
  • Arts/Entertainment Criticism -- 3rd Place: Holmes’ plays a lively game at Geva. Ben Beagle

The New York Daily News has published a complete list of awards.

Congratulations to all of the winners.

See you at today's Muckdog's Game

By Howard B. Owens

My wife and I are going to see one of the hottest teams in professional baseball at 4 p.m. -- the Batavia Muckdogs.

If you attend and want to say hello, I imagine I'll be the only fellow there wearing an old-school San Diego Padres ball cap (brown, with mission gold "SD").

Muckdog's competitive in tough division

By Howard B. Owens

Centre Daily Times, which covers the State College Spikes, has an article this morning about "brutally competitive" Pinckney Division of the NY-Penn league.

The six-team Pinckney Division, the largest in size and smallest in markets of the New York-Penn League’s three divisions, has turned brutally competitive.

Consistent Jamestown entered Saturday holding a tenuous lead.

Talented Batavia, which includes four players selected in the first five rounds of this year’s draft and five teenagers, trailed the Jammers by a game.

Two games behind Batavia rested Auburn which has won the division every year since 2002.

Two games behind Auburn stood Williamsport.

The Jammers (27-15), Muckdogs (26-16) and Doubledays (24-18) entered this weekend with the league’s best records.

It should be a great race to the wire.  Jamestown, Batavia and Auburn all won yesterday.

Today's game is at 4:05 p.m. against Williamsport. Tickets are only $5 per person for general admiission. 

UPDATE: Here's an article from the Auburn perspective.

Top Content for July

By Howard B. Owens

The following posts were the most viewed in July, based on our web tracking stats.

A note for employers

By Howard B. Owens

We launched our free employment listings during the middle part of the July.

I was just looking over our stats -- in just that short of a time, more than 1,000 people looked at the jobs page. That tells me, there is a local online audience looking for employement opportunities.

Click on the "jobs" tab above and follow the directions on how to post your free employment ad.

We can easily assume that Batavian readers are engaged, informed, energetic people; you don't want to miss your chance to make your next great hire at no cost.

Muckdogs continue hot streak

By Howard B. Owens

A gallon of gas is $4. A ticket to the Muckdogs is only $5. Conclusion? Why waste a lot of money on gas when you could  stick close to home for some inexpensive fun tonight at  Dwyer and watch the NY-Penn league's hottest team.

Batavia smacked down the Spikes last night 12-7, to move the team's record to 26-16.  The Muckdogs are a game behind Jamestown in the race for the Pinckney Division crown. The team also has the second best record in the entire NY-Penn league.

Tonight's game against lackluster State College is scheduled for 7:05  p.m. Tomorrow's game against Williamsport is at 4:05 p.m.

Big time banker has roots in Batavia

By Howard B. Owens

Slate profiles Ronald Hermance Jr., CEO of Hudson City Bancorp. Hudson is based in Jersey, but Hermance is originally from Batavia.

Despite the proximity to Manhattan, Hermance and his 140-year-old bank have never been part of the fast-money Wall Street scene. And thanks to its geographic and cultural distance, this bridge-and-tunnel bank has thrived amid the mortgage debacle.

Hudson City in late July reported that second-quarter profits were up 52.3 percent. In the 2008 first half, mortgage originations rose 50 percent from 2007. And yet its balance sheet is pristine. "Only 328 out of 79,929 loans are nonperforming at the end of the second quarter," he said. (But who's counting?) Last Thursday, Hudson City sported a market capitalization of $9.46 billion, twice the size of the Blackstone Group.

...

Hudson City banks the old-fashioned way: It takes deposits and makes mortgages to people who buy homes in which they plan to live. And then it hangs on to them. No subprime, no securitization. Hudson City's bankers are steady daters in a wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am era. "We don't have Wall Street bundle up the mortgages and sell them to someone in Norway," Hermance says. "We're going to live with those loans."

...

CNBC's motormouth James Cramer has dubbed Hermance a modern-day George Bailey. And while it has been a wonderful life of late for Hermance (last year he was paid a total of $8.45 million, and his shares in the bank are worth about $114 million, according to Hudson City's 2007 proxy), comparisons between the balding, mustachioed banker and Jimmy Stewart only go so far.

It's a fascinating story even if the world of high finance isn't your thing. Read the whole thing.

Oil boom fuels growth for Batavia-based Graham Corp.

By Howard B. Owens

High oil prices are pushing refinery upgrades and expansion, which is good news to Batavia-based Graham Corp. Its revenue and profits are soaring, reports the Buffalo News.

Graham is coming off a fiscal year where profits and sales were the highest ever by a wide margin. The company’s stock, which traded for just over $10 in January 2007, now stands at $89.

And Graham’s order backlog and new order bookings are running at a record pace, prompting Lines to predict that the company’s growth spurt is far from over, with sales expected to rise by another 15 percent to 20 percent during the fiscal year that began in March. That would push revenues to around $100 million for the first time ever.

The article indicates that Graham is continuing to expand its work force, at home and aboard.

Cardinal's blog reviews season so far of several Muckdogs

By Howard B. Owens

Future Redbirds takes a look at the progress of several Cardinal Prospects.   Part 1. Part 2. Part 3.

Here are what they say about a few of the Muckdogs.  There's more coverage on the links above.

Pick #2, Supplemental First Round, #39 Overall - Lance Lynn

  • Batavia - 14.2 ip, 15 k’s, 3 BB, 1 ER

Lynn pitched 89.2 innings for Ole Miss this season already, so it is my guess (hope) that the Cardinals are going to get him 30-40 relatively easy innings at Batavia this season before starting him at Quad Cities next year.  He has looked pretty dominant at Batavia so far, but there’s no need to rush him this year.  He hasn’t walked anyone in his last three appearances (11 innings) and he’s only given up one extra base hit (a double) in his time at Batavia.

Pick #3, Second Round, #59 overall - Shane Peterson

  • Batavia - .352/.455/.429 14.4 BB%, 20 LD%, .471 BABIP

Shane has certainly torn up Batavia in his first twenty-seven games (take a look at that BABIP, though). He played three years in college at Long Beach State and has shown that he can play at this level, so I’d like to see him challenged by a move up to Quad Cities.  He has played all three outfield positions and a little bit of first base, but it seems to me that he profiles best in center field if he’s got the fielding chops to play there.  His power numbers have never really fit for a corner outfielder or first base and that has continued at Batavia (.077 isolated power).  He is, however, still only twenty years old, so he could still grow into more of a power stroke as he moves up the ladder.

Pick #5, Fourth Round, #125 overall - Scott Gorgen

  • Batavia - 16 ip, 19 k’s, 5 BB, 4 ER

Gorgen put up outstanding numbers at UC-Irvine and has continued with similar rates at Batavia.  Like Lynn, Gorgen put in quite a few innings in college (115.2), so the Cardinals will probably not want to give him too many more innings this year.  I would bet that if Gorgen was 6′2″ with the same numbers he would get a lot more hype than he has, but continued success at higher levels will be the only antidote to the size bias.

Pick #6, Fifth Round, #155 Overall - Jermaine Curtis

  • Batavia - .315/.390/.438 8.0 BB%, 14 LD%, .360 BABIP

Jermaine is a third baseman with a similar offensive profile to Shane Peterson (with the exception, of course, that Curtis is a righty and Peterson is a lefty).  He has hit well, but doesn’t seem to have the power to stay at third base (.123 ISO).  It has been suggested that he may be converted to second base, where his bat would play a lot better.  Of course, like Peterson he is still only twenty years old, so the power could still come.

Pick #20, Round Nineteen, #575 Overall - Xavier Scruggs

  • Batavia - .189/.262/.305 7.4 BB%, 18 LD%, .266 BABIP

Xavier was a power hitting first baseman for UNLV, but he hasn’t yet lived up to his reputation in his first 95 at bats at Batavia. He’s got good size and had outstanding plate discipline in college, so it is a little disappointing that he has struggled so much.

Pick #43, Forty-second Round, #1265 Overall - Blakely Murphy

  • Batavia - .253/.337/.471 3 hr, 10.1 BB%, 9.0 LD%, .365 BABIP

Blake has been called one of the great sleepers of the draft. Looking at his college numbers, he played four years at Western Carolina University, I can’t understand why he didn’t get more interest in the draft. He had a very solid junior year in college and then put up a line of .367/.495/.683 his senior year, hitting 16 homers in 221 at bats. He isn’t undersized (or oversized for a catcher) at 6′1″, 195 lbs, he’s got good patience at the plate and hits for good power. Maybe he’s a black hole on defense, but those numbers should play anywhere. He hasn’t quite put up the same numbers thus far at Batavia, but he has been solid.

Also covered (see links above):

Pick #15, Round Fourteen, #425 Overall - Charles Cutler

Pick #18, Round Seventeen, #515 Overall - Joshua Hester

Pick #23, Round Twenty-two, #665 Overall - Colt Sedbrook

Pick #25, Round Twenty-four, #725 Overall - Zachary Pitts

Pick #26, Round Twenty-five, #755 Overall - Jason Buursma

Pick #27, Round Twenty-six, #785 Overall - Christopher Swauger

Pick #28, Round Twenty-seven, #815 Overall - George Brown

Pick #39, Thirty-eighth Round, #1145 Overall - Daniel Richardson

Disagree with McCain and you're unpatriotic

By Howard B. Owens

My friend Matt Welch (who wrote a book about John McCain) takes a look McCain's speech trumpeting his support of the surge and suggesting Obama's lack of support disqualifies him for the highest office in the land.

What interests me here is McCain's classic trait of personalizing all policy debates. If you disagree with him, it must be because you are dishonorable, and placing politics ahead of country.

and ...

Second and more interestingly, at the time of the surge, there was zero political cost to McCain supporting the surge. He was running in a Republican primary, and not particularly well, so his ironclad support for troop escalation was largely seen by many Republican stalwarts (in a season where the only anti-war candidate was being treated like a leper) as one of the best things going for the guy, given his various transgressions on other counts.

 

 

Is Batman libertarian?

By Howard B. Owens

Interesting post from Ilya Somin on Volokh Conspiracy about the libertarian themes in Dark Knight.

Bruce Wayne is a billionaire businessman and his control of Wayne Enterprises is viewed as essential to his crimefighting activities. At times, the Batman movies even hint at the possibility that big businessmen actually have a self-interested incentive to help provide the public good of reducing violent crime. After all, they stand to lose a lot of profit if high crime rates reduce investment and drive away their customers and skilled workers. Precisely because of the vast size of his firm, Wayne has less incentive to free ride on the crime-fighting efforts of others in providing the public good of crime control. He will capture enough of the benefits of crime-fighting to justifying investing in it, even if he has to pay a very high proportion of the costs himself.

But will the message get through that members of society have a strong self-interest to resolve problem sans government programs, because in general government programs are ineffectual? 

One of Charlie Mallow's consistent themes in comments on The Batavian is that people are unwilling to see the government cut spending because eventually, it means cuts to their favorite programs.  Maybe if Batman's message of self-sacrifice as part of enlightened self-interest gets through, such cuts will be more palatable to the general public.

Also interersting point near the end of the post (if you go past the spoiler alert) about how, in the end, the idealistic individual whom people expect to save us from a government gone wrong will eventually prove not up to the task.  Obama fans drawn more to his image than his policies might want to read that part of the post and pounder the point.

Red Wings pleased with Muckdogs affiliation

By Howard B. Owens

From today's D&C:

Rochester Community Baseball is more than satisfied working with and promoting the New York-Penn League Batavia Muckdogs this year, and general manager Dan Mason on Friday said he expects to continue the operation in 2009, with the St. Louis Cardinals remaining as the parent club.

The Muckdogs drew 21,952 for their first 17 home dates this summer. Last year's final home attendance was 44,270 for 38 dates. "We expect attendance to pick up in August, when we'll have fireworks on four Friday nights, and bobblehead nights for Ryan Howard (Saturday) and Chase Utley (Aug. 23)," said Mason.

Dwyer Stadium seats about 2,600 and Mason said the July 4 crowd of 3,012 was the largest for Batavia "in years."

Former UN ambassador calls Obama speech naive

By Howard B. Owens

Writing for the Los Angeles Times, former U.N. ambassador John Bolton punches holes in Barack Obama's much lauded Berlin speech, which the Obama campaign built up before hand as his first major foreign policy pronouncement.

Obama used the Berlin Wall metaphor to describe his foreign policy priorities as president: "The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand. The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down."

This is a confused, nearly incoherent compilation, to say the least, amalgamating tensions in the Atlantic Alliance with ancient historical conflicts. One hopes even Obama, inexperienced as he is, doesn't see all these "walls" as essentially the same in size and scope. But beyond the incoherence, there is a deeper problem, namely that "walls" exist not simply because of a lack of understanding about who is on the other side but because there are true differences in values and interests that lead to human conflict. The Berlin Wall itself was not built because of a failure of communication but because of the implacable hostility of communism toward freedom. The wall was a reflection of that reality, not an unfortunate mistake.

Tearing down the Berlin Wall was possible because one side -- our side -- defeated the other. Differences in levels of economic development, or the treatment of racial, immigration or religious questions, are not susceptible to the same analysis or solution. Even more basically, challenges to our very civilization, as the Cold War surely was, are not overcome by naively "tearing down walls" with our adversaries.

Huffington Post has in-depth coverage with photos, video and the full transcript. Judge for yourself.

UPDATE: It's also worth dropping in a quote from Batavia's own Bill Kauffman on Obama's rootlessness and what it means for his foreign policy (read the whole essay because Kauffman is equally hard on John McCain):

Obama's limitless internationalism is encapsulated in his statement that "When poor villagers in Indonesia have no choice but to send chickens to market infected with avian flu, it cannot be seen as a distant concern." This is, quite possibly, the most expansive definition ever essayed of the American national interest. It is a license for endless interventions in the affairs of other nations. It is a recipe for blundering into numberless wars-which will be fought, disproportionately, by those God & Guns small-town Americans evidently despised or pitied by Mr. Obama. It is redolent of the biblical assurance that not even a sparrow can fall to the earth unnoticed by God. The congruence of the roles of the deity and U.S. foreign policy in Obama's mind is not reassuring to those of us who desire peace and a modest role for the U.S. military.

Here's another UPDATE: Just came across this assertion on Reason's Hit and Run:  

I definitely agree with Andrew Bacevich that an Obama victory discredits the Iraq project, while a McCain victory validates it. But McCain and Obama want the same thing, for Americans to be proud of their country again vis-a-vis its engagement in foreign conflicts. Put another way: I don't think an Obama victory discredits neoconservatism. He's offering neoconservatism with a human face.

So, are you ready to elect a liberal neocon?

 

How one Batavian made it to the major leagues

By Howard B. Owens

The rain out of yesterday's Muckdog's game also washed away an opportunity to take in nine innings with Bill Kauffman

Instead, we sat in the stands above the soggy field surrounded by 500 restless summer camp kids and chatted until the din of some undefinable noises from the sound system drove us away.  Once we discovered a mutual affection for the Pok-A-Dot and concluded the game would not be played, we dashed over to the diner for lunch.

Having exhausted Google in requests for links to articles by Bill Kauffman, I asked him to send me some pointers to published pieces.

This morning's e-mail brings another essay about Batavia, Play Ball, in First Principles.

Kauffman delights in the quirky fates of life in America, where either by chance or odd ball persistence, people leave marks both indelible  and obscure. In "Play Ball," Kauffman passes along the tale of Vince Maney, perhaps the first and perhaps the only Batavian to ever play major league baseball.

The chance of a lifetime was the result of Ty Cobb fighting with a fan, which led to a suspension, which led to Cobb's teammates refusing to take the field, which led to a team of amateurs and semi-pros filling out the roster of the Detroit Tigers for one day nearly a century ago.

The game of May 18, 1912, was a rout. Emergency Tigers pitcher Aloysius Travers, who later became a Jesuit priest, was touched for twenty-four runs on twenty-six hits in eight innings. Who needs a bullpen? Vince Maney described the game in a letter to his brother: “I played shortstop and had more fun than you can imagine. Of course it was a big defeat for us, but they paid us $15 for a couple of hours work and I was satisfied to be able to say that I had played against the world champions. I had three putouts, three assists, one error, and no hits.”

If only Bill James had been sabermetricking in 1912. For Vince also walked once and was hit by a pitch, giving him an on-base percentage of .500. Calling Billy Beane!

Maney played under an assumed name that day. He was a strikebreaker, after all—a scab of sorts, although Ty Cobb wasn’t exactly Samuel Gompers. For nigh unto one hundred years the baseball record books listed Maney as Pat Meaney, forty-one, of Philadelphia. The fictive Meany’s made-up age gave him the specious distinction of being the oldest rookie ever to debut in the majors, till forty-two-year-old Satchel Paige joined Cleveland in 1948.

I just wish I had been in the stands last August when Kauffman read a Charles Bukowski poem to the fans between innings. Perhaps he can be persuaded to reprise the performance this summer.

Weiner Dog races at Batavia Downs

By Howard B. Owens

HarnessLink contains a post from Batavia Downs marketing manager Todd Haight about Weiner Dog races on the  track, but no mention of date or time for the event.

We do learn that last year's winner, Rudy, will be back to defend his crown.

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