Who Will Be Rasanga’s Closer?

11th Hour Reflections from

Onyango Oloo

Editor & Publisher, Demokrasia Thurwa

In the late 1980s I became an involuntary permanent resident of Canada.

Growing up  all over Kenya (born in Paul Machanga Estate, Nakuru County; baptized in Fort Hall, Murang’a County;  schooled in Mweru, Nyeri County; RTS, Nairobi County; Kisa West, Kakamega County;  Tudor, Mombasa County; Nairobi again), I was more familiar with  games like soccer, athletics, basket ball, field hockey and the like.

Before I set foot in North America, I used to read about American Football in magazines like Sports Illustrated, Ebony, News Week and Time.

When I first saw baseball being played, I thought it was softball which I was familiar with having gone to Baptist High School, a secondary school in Mombasa run by White missionaries from  states like Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina and Texas in the middle of the American Deep South.

Because I am writing from  a cyber cafe somewhere in Kenya and will be referencing baseball terms a bit, it is only fair that I bring ALL my readers, not just those  eyeballing  this in North America and Europe or those Kenyans in Kenya who are familiar with the game up to speed.

Wikipedia informs us that:

Baseball is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of nine players who take turns batting and fielding.The offense attempts to score more runs than its opponents by hitting a ball thrown by the pitcher with a bat and moving counter-clockwise around a series of four bases: first, second, third and home plate. A run is scored when the runner advances around the bases and returns to home plate.Players on the batting team take turns hitting against the pitcher of the fielding team, which tries to prevent runs by getting hitters out in any of several ways. A player on the batting team can stop at any of the bases and later advance on a teammate’s hit or other means. The teams switch between batting and fielding whenever the fielding team records three outs. One turn at bat for both teams, beginning with the visiting team, constitutes an inning, and nine innings a game. The team with the most runs at the end of the game wins.

I want to talk about pitching and pitchers. I specifically want to talk about closing pitchers.

And who on earth is a closing pitcher?

Here is Wikipedia once again rushing to the rescue:

In baseball, a closing pitcher, more frequently referred to as a closer, is a relief pitcher who specializes in getting the final outs in a close game when his team is leading. A closer is generally a team’s best reliever and designated to pitch the last few outs of games when their team is leading by a margin of three runs or fewer. Rarely does a closer enter with their team losing or in a tie game. A closer’s effectiveness has traditionally been measured by the save. Over time, closers have become one-inning specialists typically brought in at the beginning of the ninth inning in save situations. The pressure of the last three outs of the game is often cited for the importance attributed to the ninth inning.

One of baseball’s most famous and effective closing pitchers is

Mariano Rivera, a Panamanian baseball pitcher who played 19 seasons in Major League Baseball  for the New York Yankees, from 1995 to 2013. Nicknamed “Mo” and “Sandman”, Rivera spent most of his career as a relief pitcher, and served as the Yankees’ closer for 17 seasons. A 13-time All-Star and five-time World Series champion, he is MLB’s career leader in saves (652) and games finished (952). Rivera won five American League (AL) Rolaids Relief Man Awards and three Delivery Man of the Year Awards, and finished in the top three in voting for the AL Cy Young Award four times.

From what is in the public domain, it appears as if former Prime Minister Raila Odinga is destined to be Cornel Rasanga’s  closer, the ousted Siaya Governor’s Mariano Rivera. Reports indicate that Agwambo is supposed to make a last ditch  whistle stop tour of Siaya trying to persuade skeptical Siaya voters to go against their better judgment and vote for Rasanga in the October 17, 2013 by election. Shortly thereafter, Raila will leave the country to embark on a tour of the United States accompanied by some Governors (excluding of course Rasanga, who is gasping for what is left of his public life).

But will the ODM Supremo save the day for Cornel Rasanga, the same way he came through for Neto Agostinho in the Ndhiwa  by election of 2012?

Let us consider that prospect for a moment.

But before doing that, let us go back to that  Wikipedia excerpt for just a second.

Pay attention to the part that I have  marked for emphasis with a bold font:

In baseball, a closing pitcher, more frequently referred to as a closer, is a relief pitcher who specializes in getting the final outs in a close game when his team is leading. A closer is generally a team’s best reliever and designated to pitch the last few outs of games when their team is leading by a margin of three runs or fewer. Rarely does a closer enter with their team losing or in a tie game. A closer’s effectiveness has traditionally been measured by the save.

Did you mark that?

1. The closer only comes in WHEN HIS TEAM IS LEADING.

2. A closer rarely enters the game with their team losing or in a tied game.

Now, if the Siaya gubernatorial contest is a baseball game for the purposes of argument and illustration, which  team is LEADING?

Is it Team Rasanga or Team Oduol?

All indications  are that Team Rasanga is  TRAILING BADLY.

Is there a need for a  closing pitcher, even if he is a political superstar like Raila Amolo Odinga?

Well, if we were to use the logic  of baseball, then  one would surmise that even Mariano Rivera can not and will not rescue Team Rasanga from the sure and inevitable  DEFEAT they are staring at.

One a more serious note, I was speaking to a friend of mine who is  a top insider of ODM with direct access to  the former Prime Minister. He indicated that another top confidant of Agwambo placed a call to the former PM on Thursday, October 10, 2013 and basically informed the former Co-Principal that the ground in Siaya County was ” not very good” as far as Rasanga’s quixotic quest for the Governor’s seat was concerned. Now we all know that Raila Odinga is one of the most consummate politicians and strategists in Kenya today and follows developments on the ground very, very closely.

This leads me to believe that Raila Odinga ALREADY KNOWS that Cornel Rasanga is  DOOMED like a hapless deer frozen with fright staring at the  headlights of an approaching vehicle which is seconds away from snuffing out the animal’s life.

Since this is, after all, a POLITICAL blog rather than an online sports journal, let me go back to the politics. And since I am a dyed-in-the-wool SOCIALIST, let me quote two of my favourite Marxist Leninists:

“…The more powerful enemy can be conquered only by exerting the utmost effort, and by necessarily, thoroughly, carefully, attentively and skillfully taking advantage of any, even the smallest, ‘rift’ among the enemies…by taking advantage of every, even the smallest, opportunity of gaining a mass ally, even though this ally be temporary, vacillating, unstable, unreliable and conditional…”

– Vladimir Lenin, “Left-Wing Communism, an Infantile Disorder, International Publishers, New York, 1940, p.50.

Our second reading comes from South East Asia, from the history drenched land of Vietnam led by such revolutionary icons like

Ho Chi Minh,

General Vo Nguyen Giap (who rejoined the ancestors on October 4, 2013 at the age of  101!) and

Le Duan, the  legendary  General Secretary of the Vietnamese Worker’s Party who I now quote:

“… Far from pinning our hopes on antagonisms within the ranks of the enemy, we are fully aware that the development of these contradictions and the extent to which they be capitalized upon are in the last analysis determined by the strength of the revolution. The experience of all genuine popular revolutions shows that the stronger the revolutionary forces become and the higher the revolutionary tide rises, the more the enemy’s ranks are torn by contradictions and are likely to split. Ultimately the time comes when these conflicts have grown so exacerbated as to render impossible all compromise between the various enemy factions. This constitutes one of the unmistakable signs of the maturity of the revolutionary situation. The revolution then breaks out and the enemy’s rule is overthrown in decisive battles….The victory of the revolution depends primarily on a correct determination of the general orientation and strategic objective, as well as the specific orientation and objective for each period. But just as important as defining the orientation and objective is the problem of how to carry them into effect once such decisions are made. What road should be followed? What forms should be adopted? What measures should be used? Experience has shown that a revolutionary movement may mark time, or even fail, not for lack of clearly defined orientations and objectives, but essentially because there have been no appropriate principles and methods of revolutionary action. Methods of revolutionary action are devised to defeat the enemy of the revolution, and in the most advantageous way, so that the revolution may attain its ends as quickly as possible. Here one also needs wisdom as well as courage; it is not only a science, but also an art. Decisions over methods of revolutionary action require, more than in any other field, that the revolutionary maintain the highest creative spirit. Revolution is creation; it cannot succeed without imagination and ingenuity. There has never been nor will there ever be a unique formula for making a revolution that is suited to all situations. One given method may be adaptable to a certain country but unsuitable in another. A correct method in certain times and circumstances may be erroneous in other situations. Everything depends on the concrete historical conditions….. It is a matter of principle that either in the daily policies or in the practice of revolutionary struggle… a revolutionary should never lose sight of the final goal. If one considers the fight for small daily gains and immediate targets as ‘everything’ and views the final goal as ‘nothing’… then one displays the worst kind of opportunism which can only result in keeping the popular masses in eternal servitude. However, it is by no means sufficient to comprehend only the final objective. While keeping in mind the revolutionary goal, the art of revolutionary leadership lies in knowing how to win judiciously step by step. Revolution is the work of millions of popular masses standing up to overthrow the ruling classes, which command powerful means of violence together with other material and spiritual forces. That is why a revolution is always a long-term process. From the initial steps to the final victory, a revolution necessarily goes through many difficult and complex stages of struggle full of twists and bends, clearing one obstacle after another and gradually changing the relation of forces between the revolution and the counter-revolution until overwhelming superiority is achieved over the ruling classes…”

– Le Duan, “The Vietnamese Revolution: Fundamental Problems and Essential Tasks, New World Paperbacks, New York, 1971, pp 22-27.

To all those who are in Team Oduol, starting with the Governor Elect himself, let me CLOSE with these lines from a poem titled “Advice to Myself”:

Without the cold and desolation of winter 
There could not be the warmth and
splendor of spring 
Calamity has tempered and hardened me 
And turned my mind
into steel

-From the 

Prison Diary of Ho Chi Minh