End the Sedona red curse

The Arizona Diamondbacks' 1-0 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers tonight was as gut-wrenching as it was predictable. Pitcher Dan Haren put in a stellar performance for eight innings, but the offense couldn't plate a single run. That's nine losses in a row, and it almost seems like the team is inventing ways to lose.

Tonight, manager A.J. Hinch had his number 8 hitter, catcher Chris Snyder, bunt left fielder Conor Jackson over to second base, so that hot-hitting pitcher Haren could drive Jackson in. That's the kind of move you make when your pitcher has a .400 batting average and your team has lost eight in a row.

Like that move on the field, the front office made a similar desperation move, announcing a deal for pitcher Dontrelle Willis. This is a pitcher who was designated for assignment after going 2-8 in 101 innings with a 6.86 ERA in three seasons with the Detroit Tigers. This season may have shown a slight improvement, with a 4.98 ERA and 1-2 record in nine games, but it wasn't enough for the Tigers to keep him, despite being on the hook for about $8 million in salary to him this year. The Diamondbacks reportedly get to take a chance on Willis for a bargain basement price of $266,000 and the trade of pitcher Billy Buckner, who had a 0-3 record with an 11.08 ERA this season, so even a broken-down Willis is a serious upgrade.

However, even if Willis regains the phenomenal form that made him "the D-Train," the ace of the Florida Marlins staff in the 2003-2005 seasons, he's not a remedy for what ails this team.

If we're talking about making desperation moves to get a win, the front office should swallow its pride and reinstate the old uniforms, the ones this franchise won a World Series in. The team's merchandise sales may be up since adopting Sedona Red and the classless comic book lettering in 2007, but aside from that season, these unis -- which make the Diamondbacks look like way too many other red-clad teams in both leagues -- have brought the team nothing but woe.

With the old unis they went from last place to first in the 1998 and 1999 seasons, and it's true that with the new unis they went from last place in 2006, the last year they wore the old colors, to first place in 2007. (In 2006, they tied for last place with Colorado with 76-86 records.) However, aside from that good year, the team was second with a not-nearly-good-enough-for-the-wild-card 82-80 record in 2008 (and a fruitless effort to hold on to the lead the team, at barely .500, held most of that season because the rest of the division sucked as much as the Diamondbacks did) and has been a cellar dweller throughout 2009 and 2010.

In the first nine years of the franchise -- the years with the old uniforms -- the team finished first three times, that's 33 percent of the time. The team also placed last three times, 33 percent of the time. But since the new uniforms came in, they've finished in first place once, finished in last place once and are on track to finish in last place this year. Not only that, but ace pitcher Brandon Webb has been sidelined since opening day of 2009. Although not even his stellar 22-7 record in 2008 could rescue the team from being a weak .500 team, I think it's part of the curse of the red unis that's put him out of commission this year and last.

So end the curse, Diamondbacks execs. Bring back the old uniforms and honor the team's winning tradition.

Copyright © 2010, Salvatore Caputo

Running out of outrage

The only thing that gets me angry anymore is driving. Well, maybe not the only thing, but people seem to think they're in NASCAR as they tailgate you at way above the speed limit.

I don't care if you want to go speed like some maniac and end up in hell 10 minutes sooner, but you don't have to tailgate me to do it.

Give me some time (and space) to get out of your way. Look ahead of you. Get off the phone. I'm not watching my rearview the way I'm watching where I'm going. Maybe you could do that too.

Tailgating is bullying, but there's no national campaign to end it, no politically correct program to teach people how to drive like they don't own the road exclusively.

One friend of mine purposely slows down when someone tailgates him. I'm not into that, but it's so tempting because you know what, I may be slow, but I'm ahead of you. Accept it.

Copyright © 2010, Salvatore Caputo

As jobs picture worsens, legislature fails to act

Just as I finished writing an article on efforts to combat unemployment and underemployment brought on by the Great Recession and other economic blows in the Arizona marketplace, the state's Department of Commerce issued its twice-annual job forecast — and it’s not good news. (For a copy of the full report, click here.)

The department revised upward its estimate of job losses for the year 2010, estimating that 50,400 nonfarm jobs will be lost in the state this year. The department’s previous estimate (made in October 2009) for job losses this year was 17,300, and the reason the forecast was changed? “This is because the observed losses of nonfarm employment have been greater that the forecasted job losses,” which is essentially a way of saying either “we spoke too soon” or “we were just flat-out wrong.”

Although it forecasts a slight job recovery in 2011, projecting a gain of about 23,100 nonfarm jobs next year, the fact is that we don’t know whether the forecasters will be wrong again.

Even if the forecasters are correct, that slight uptick represents a recovery of less than half of the employment to be lost in 2010, and it won’t come close to making a dent in the 189,900 nonfarm jobs that were lost in Arizona in 2009, let alone the 300,000 lost since the Great Recession began in 2007.

Reading between the lines a little bit, the most salient point of the report is that the chief cause of Arizona’s woes is its lack of economic diversity.

“Housing construction was a significant driver of the Arizona economy during the boom in 2001-2006,” the report says. In June 2006, construction employment represented 9.5 percent of the Arizona nonfarm workforce compared with 5.7 percent in the nation as a whole. Today, construction represents about 4.6 percent of the Arizona workforce, compared with 4.3 percent in the nation as a whole.

“Arizona benefited from the expansion of the housing bubble as suggested by leading economic indicators such as employment growth and home price evaluation,” the report says. “With the contraction of the housing bubble, Arizona has some of the highest rates of job losses, home price devaluation and home mortgage foreclosures in the nation.”

The need to diversify Arizona’s economic base was stressed by the Republicans in the Arizona House of Representatives when Speaker of the House Kirk Adams prepared to introduce Arizona’s job recovery act, or HB 2250, in January. The bill, which includes tax cuts to businesses as incentives to bring more jobs to the state, was based on research by Scottsdale-based economist Elliott D. Pollack.

Although people may disagree over how to create more jobs in the state — opponents of the bill said that Arizona could not afford to lose the tax revenue while the state’s budget is so fragile and that the bill could not guarantee job creation, while proponents said that the incentives would be tied to actual job creation and the state’s budget problems will not go away without job growth to foster more revenue — the fact is that this is the most important issue facing the state today, and the bill stalled in the Arizona Senate. (This video from KAET's nightly "Horizon" program features the opposing points of view on HB 2250.)

This State Legislature put items like being able to carry concealed weapons and the immigration enforcement bill on a fast track, like these were problems that needed immediate relief, while doing nothing of substance to solve the state’s budget or unemployment crises.

No economist has linked Arizona’s massive job losses — about 300,000 and counting since the Great Recession started in 2007 — to illegal immigration.

HB 2250, which passed the Arizona House, never made it to the floor of the Senate for a vote. Expressing disappointment at the bill’s fate, Paul Boyer, spokesman for the House majority party, told Business Banter, “I think at some point, we’re going to have to address the job losses.”

That “some point” should be now.

Copyright © 2010, Salvatore Caputo

Circles' last spin

When I first came to the Valley in 1981, Circles Records & Tapes was already a fixture at 800 N. Central Ave., Phoenix. The record store, owned by Leonard and Angela Singer since it opened in 1972, was the place where I first saw a CD — Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” no less — back in 1983, I think, but maybe it was 1984.

CDs weren’t the first digital recordings. The first pop record recorded with digital equipment was Ry Cooder’s “Bop Till You Drop,” which was pressed on vinyl in the LP format. It was a revelation, though. On pristine vinyl, you could hear that there was no analog tape hiss on the master studio recording.

Little did we know at the time that digital technology was signing the death warrant for places like Circles. I came out from the East Coast used to mom-and-pop record stores with names like Harmony House and Stereo City. I was a record nerd, no question, and would spend hours combing through the bins and talking with the salespeople, who usually were record nerds themselves. Finding a dusty pressing of Johnny Cash stuffed away in the bargain bin or combing through the jazz miscellany bin to find one of Sun Ra’s ESPdisc LPs would give me a kick.

That’s why I was glad to find Circles soon after I came to work in the desert metropolis. The store’s selection of 45 RPM singles was awe-inspiringly complete for somebody looking for oldies he didn’t have the spare change to buy two decades earlier.

I remember being lonesome for some Italian sounds — being 3,000 miles from my father’s record collection. So I went to Circles. Lo and behold, in the international bin they had just what I wanted, “My Naples,” a 1964 album by Sergio Bruni that my father played to death (and I played to death when he was out of the house).

I can’t tell you how many records I bought at Circles or how much time I spent there.

When I didn’t have a job downtown anymore, Circles was out of the way unfortunately, and I haven’t been there in a while. Now, it’s just about too late. The store will close for good Saturday (March 20, 2010), a victim of a changing industry.

Just as the Ry Cooder album with digital recording on vinyl represented an intermediary step to full digital reproduction on CD, the CD represented an intermediary step in record distribution. Pretty much the same record distribution network that served vinyl and cassette recordings was used to distribute CDs. The underlying business model didn’t really need to change. The music buyer was buying an object in order to get the performance recorded on that object.

CDs weren’t subject to some of the wear and tear issues that made record collectors handle their vinyl with the care you’d lavish on a newborn, so they quickly killed off vinyl LPs. Oh yeah, guys like Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam would champion vinyl, but that couldn’t stay the tide of CDs.

Well, digital recording ultimately paved the way for a different business model: a distribution system that doesn’t rely on selling objects that contain the recording. Instead, digital files can be distributed effortlessly via the Web to computers, mp3 players, smart phones and laptops and who knows what else in the future.

That’s made the record store something like a vinyl record in the mid-1980s, a quickly dying breed. Big chains like Tower Records - who drew many buyers away from mom-and-pop shops like Circles – are long gone already. Even big-box retailers like Walmart, which virtually controlled the CD distribution chain through the 1990s, are diminished powers in the distribution of recordings. The big power is Apple, and we’re not talking The Beatles’ record label, but the computer company’s online iTunes store.

My enjoyment of dusty record bins and hidden treasures doesn’t translate to a generation weaned on Google searches that bring them right to the mp3 file they’re seeking.

So it’s amazing that Circles has lasted this long. I’ll take that Sergio Bruni record out for a few spins this weekend in honor of Circles bowing to the inexorable trend of history. Oddly enough, I can’t find that album on iTunes.

Copyright © 2010, Salvatore Caputo