Mets’ David Wright and Daniel Murphy Hope to Be Ready for Opener

Abstract: PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — Daniel Murphy was twisting and turning on a baseball diamond Sunday afternoon, no discomfort apparent on his face as he moved. Murphy was making a cameo at a minor league game. As he played on one of the back fields, intermittent cheers floated over from inside Tradition Field, where the Mets’ big league team was playing the Detroit Tigers and where Murphy, because of a strained intercostal muscle, has yet to play this year. Murphy’s modest day, though, was still a heartening sign for the team. Amid all the problem areas facing the Mets this season, from an anonymous outfield to a rejiggered bullpen to an incapacitated ace, their infield was supposed to be a source of stability. Not so. Rib-cage muscle injuries have deprived the Mets of Murphy, their starting second baseman, and third baseman David Wright. One week remains before opening day at Citi Field, and the race stretches on to get these players healthy. “I think there’s definitely enough time,” Murphy said of his own readiness for April 1. “As I progress, I’ll be able to jam a couple of more at-bats in, maybe get six or seven at-bats in, as long as I feel good. I’ll try to put a couple of days of work into one, offensively.” This time last year, Murphy’s appointment as the Mets’ full-time second baseman was one the team’s bigger story lines, and questions about his competency at the position, about how smoothly he could learn to turn a double play, reverberated throughout spring training. Then the season began, and for the most part, the murmurs subsided. Murphy was not immune to struggles — he went through a particularly uneven spell in June, when he openly criticized his defense — but he came to be seen as a source of consistency for the team. He played 156 games, finishing the season with a .291 batting average, a .332 on-base percentage and a .403 slugging percentage. Manager Terry Collins would love to have Murphy’s bat for the first game, but he will be cautious. Collins likes to tell a story about how, one year, one of his players took 18 at-bats in one day during spring training. But Collins said he would be more careful with Murphy, because of the nature of his injury and the fact that he normally follows a strict routine of drills. Image The Mets’ Daniel Murphy taking a grounder Sunday. He was a source of consistency last season. Credit Julio Cortez/Associated Press “He’s a guy who takes endless swings to make sure his swing is just how he wants it, and he hasn’t been able to do that,” Collins said. “We will make a decision at the end of the week which will benefit not only Dan but the organization.” The possibility remains that Murphy, who received a cortisone shot on his right side Feb. 19, will be overtaken by Wright, who was injured later but had the advantage of playing several games, including four in the World Baseball Classic. Wright seemed upbeat Sunday. He took batting practice on the field for the first time since March 14, when he was a late scratch for the United States’ game against the Dominican Republic in the W.B.C. The next day, he flew to New York for a cortisone shot. Wright reported no discomfort after his brief session Sunday morning. He reiterated his hope that he would be ready for April 1, but he said he was happy the Mets were staying cautious, too. “They’ve done a nice job getting the reins on me and making me take my time and really slowing it down,” Wright said. “It’s a good day, and hopefully tomorrow we’ll have a good day as well.” Strong winds came through the Mets’ spring training facility Sunday, sweeping dirt into the air and bending palm trees sideways. Murphy, his jersey fluttering like a sail, played five innings at second base and had three plate appearances, poking a single through the left side of the infield, drawing a walk and grounding out to second. The last time Murphy tried to play a minor league game, on March 15, he experienced stiffness of the right side of his rib cage, setting back his recovery a number of days. He seemed positive this time, though he said his timing at the plate was off. “It was like trying to hit an aspirin,” Murphy said. “I haven’t had an at-bat since October. So it was just O.K.” Murphy said he felt the way he always does at the start of spring training. But of course, he made sure to add, spring training began a month and a half ago. So the race to get ready continues.

Mets
David Wright
Daniel Murphy
Baseball


Revisiting Attica Shows How New York State Failed to Fulfill Promises

Abstract: In her new book, “ Blood in the Water ,” Heather Ann Thompson offers the most detailed account yet of the historic uprising by inmates over squalid conditions at Attica Correctional Facility in western New York. On Sept. 13, 1971, Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller ordered state troopers, armed with rifles and handguns, to storm the prison and quash a four-day rebellion. By the time it was over, 39 people had been shot dead, including 10 prison employees. Four others died earlier. While the retaking of Attica was the bloodiest event in a decade of civic upheaval, it spurred landmark prison reform efforts. In negotiations, Russell G. Oswald, the state corrections commissioner, agreed to 28 of the inmates’ demands meant to expand their rights and improve prison conditions. Before the riot, prisoners in New York got one roll of toilet paper a month and were permitted one shower a week. Any inmate letters written in a foreign language were thrown away. Islam was not recognized as a legitimate religion. Today, there are Muslim chaplains in most of the state’s prisons, inmates can take their high school equivalency tests in Spanish and access to law libraries is guaranteed. They are also entitled to more regular showers. Yet, in traveling the state to report on the prison system for The New York Times and The Marshall Project, we have been struck by how many of the changes that were promised were never made or have been rolled back. Following are some of the reforms promised in 1971 and where they stand today. REFORM NO. 4 Establish by Oct. 1, 1971, a permanent ombudsman service. Attempts to establish an independent ombudsman for the state’s prisons have gone nowhere. The latest effort came this year from Assemblyman Daniel J. O’Donnell, a Manhattan Democrat who is chairman of the corrections committee. The powerful corrections officers’ union opposed a bill proposed by Mr. O’Donnell, which passed the Assembly but died in the Senate, where it was blocked by Republicans from districts where prisons are major employers. REFORM NO.5 Recommend the application of New York State’s minimum wage standards to all work done by inmates. This, too, never happened. After the uprising, Commissioner Oswald said the only way the state could afford to pay inmates the minimum wage would be to charge them room and board. The current wage paid to prisoners is from 10 cents to 25 cents an hour, according to the corrections department. That figure has not increased in at least 20 years, according to the Correctional Association, a watchdog group empowered by the state to monitor prison conditions. REFORM NO.7 Allow true religious freedom. This has been one of the most successful changes to come out of that era. There are now over 160 chaplains employed in the prisons, including priests, ministers, rabbis and imams. Muslims are permitted to wear kufis and to own prayer rugs. Mealtimes are altered to accommodate fasting during Ramadan. Though the length of prisoners’ hair is generally regulated in prison, Rastafarians, Sikhs, Taoists, Native Americans and Orthodox Jews are exempt from those regulations. REFORM NO.11 Modernize the inmate education system. During the 1970s and ’80s, educational opportunities for prisoners expanded significantly. Inmates could earn bachelor’s degrees and even master’s degrees at some New York prisons. But in the 1990s, an era of tough-on-crime political rhetoric, there was a backlash. Under President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, the federal government eliminated education grants for inmates; Gov. George E. Pataki of New York, a Republican, ended state grants. Only recently, under Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, has there been a move to restore some of these programs . REFORM NO.13 Provide or allow adequate legal assistance to all inmates requesting it, or permit them to use inmate legal assistance of their choice in any proceeding whatsoever. In the aftermath of the uprising, Prisoners’ Legal Services of New York was created to give prisoners legal representation in civil and administrative matters, but there have been periodic cuts to its funding over the years. Inside prisons, inmates are now guaranteed access to law libraries, but they are provided no representation in disciplinary matters. As a result, they virtually never prevail in prison hearings, which are often overseen by uniformed staff members. Inmates are also not entitled to legal representation at parole hearings. Image Attica Correctional Facility in 2015. Credit Chang W. Lee/The New York Times REFORM NO.14 Provide a healthy diet; reduce the number of pork dishes; increase fresh fruit daily. Few things are more central to an inmate’s existence than food. It can be a source of much tension — and, at times, violence — on a cellblock. Inmates held in solitary confinement complain that as retribution, guards will cut their portions or deny them meals altogether. Only in recent months have prisons been prohibited from feeding inmates “the loaf,” a reviled concoction of dried bread and root vegetables. There have been some improvements. Inmates can order special meals, including those that are kosher. Fresh fruit, though, is still limited. Inmates typically receive one piece of fruit two to three times a week, according to the corrections department. REFORM NO.16 Provide adequate medical treatment for every inmate. Since the Attica uprising, the number of medical personnel employed in New York’s prisons has increased and become more professional, according to the Correctional Association. Even so, in 2013, the most recent full year for which data is available, inmates filed more complaints over medical care than over any other issue. In interviews, prisoners have described long waits to see doctors and nurses, and receiving ibuprofen all too often as the all-purpose treatment for any ailment. Prisoners say security staff members sometimes bully medical personnel into playing down injuries, especially those resulting from physical altercations with officers. In December, The Times published an article about one inmate, Leonard Strickland, who died after a violent confrontation with officers. The story included a 45-minute video that showed officers dragging Mr. Strickland, near death, through hallways while a prison nurse looked on and did nothing. REFORM NO.17 Institute a program for the recruitment and employment of a significant number of black and Spanish-speaking officers. At the time of the riot, there was just one Hispanic officer among more than 500 guards at Attica. That ratio has barely changed since then. As of July 1, 96 percent of the officers at Attica were white, 2 percent were Hispanic and 1 percent were black, according to the corrections department; by contrast, about two-thirds of the state’s inmate population is black or Hispanic. The same racial disparity exists in almost all of the maximum-security prisons upstate: At Clinton Correctional Facility, where two murderers escaped last year, the work force was 99 percent white in 2012, when the Correctional Association last surveyed the prison. REFORM NO.18 Establish an inmate grievance commission comprised of one elected inmate from each company, which is authorized to speak to the administration. Prisoners won this right, but it has had little practical effect on everyday life. Prisoner-elected representatives are allowed to sit in on grievance hearings, except for those weighing claims of abuses by staff members, but they have no influence over the outcome. Grievances alleging employee misconduct — which account for the second-highest number of complaints — are heard solely by prison administrators. Inmates say their complaints often lead to retaliation by officers. Another reform made after the Attica uprising was the creation of elected inmate liaison committees to meet regularly with prison officials, but few of these bodies have clout. Still, the committees have sometimes served as early warning systems. The committee at Clinton was the first to report that inmates were being beaten and tortured after the escapes there last year. Those allegations, which The Times reported on, have yet to be addressed publicly. REFORM NO. 24 Remove visitation screens as soon as possible. A 1982 federal court decision expanding prisoner rights helped to bring change on this front. At the time of the riot, inmates were prohibited from having physical contact with visitors. They could not kiss their spouses or hold their children. In most prisons, they peered at visitors through a mesh or plexiglass screen. Today, only inmates in solitary confinement sit behind a barrier during visitation. Otherwise, inmates typically sit at tables with their families, sharing a meal or playing cards. For children, there are play areas with toys and Disney movies on TVs. REFORM NO.26 Institute a 30-day maximum for segregation arising out of any offense. Every effort should be geared toward restoring the individual to regular housing as soon as possible, consistent with safety regulations. Only in recent years have court-ordered reforms limited the amount of time that inmates can spend in solitary confinement . Most of the recent changes are meant for the most vulnerable inmates, whose time in isolation is supposed to be strictly limited. During weekdays, 16- and 17-year-olds must be allowed outside their cells for at least six hours a day. Inmates with serious mental illness can be held in solitary confinement for no more than 30 days at a time before being moved to a psychiatric unit. Pregnant women are also protected. Though there are limits for first-time offenders in the general population, inmates can still spend years, even decades, in solitary. REFORM NO.27 Permit access to outside dentists and doctors at inmate’s own expense. Except in very rare cases, this change has never been made.

Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy


On Her Way to College Despite Her Family’s Eviction

Abstract: The worst moment of the fall came when Rene Blas, 19, and her family were evicted from their Harlem apartment and had to scatter in three directions: her parents and younger brother to a family shelter in Brooklyn, her older brother and his girlfriend and infant to another family shelter, and Rene, because she was over 18, to a city women’s shelter . “In the beginning I thought it would be the end of the world,” Ms. Blas said. “I was always their girl. I got spoiled.” She stayed at a women’s shelter in the Bronx “about 30 minutes,” she said, long enough for someone to steal her money while she slept. She left and spent two days sleeping in Morningside Park. “Finally a lady said I should call 311 and ask specifically for this place,” she said. Ms. Blas now lives in Covenant House, an affiliate of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York. She joined the Rights of Passage program, a bridge for homeless youths who need permanent housing. “It’s for kids who want to do something with their life, go to school, start a career,” she said. Until September, Ms. Blas seemed to be on a straight track to her future. Her father was a United States Army sergeant when he married her mother, a German, and she grew up in Heidelberg, speaking German. In 2002 her family moved to New York, to be closer to her father’s family. It was a hard move for Ms. Blas, who was in the sixth grade and did not make friends in her new school in Harlem. “I used to hide in the library,” she said. “That’s why I was able to skip seventh grade.” She studied “all day, every day.” At A. Philip Randolph High School, she joined the track team. “One day we were practicing, sophomore year, and I sort of got curious about it,” she said about her first encounter with a hurdle. “I jumped over it. The next meet, I was running the 400-meter hurdles.” A budding star, she competed for Randolph in many citywide track events. She was ready to start college in the fall of 2008, but her father lost his job as a security guard, and the family fell behind on the rent. “We got evicted, so I couldn’t get my financial aid papers,” she said. “College was going to cost $6,000 a year I don’t have.” The landlord would not let them back into the apartment, even to get the one folder with her family’s tax returns from 2007, and her school schedule. With Covenant House’s help, she has found a job at Starbucks, and plans to begin studying nursing at Lehman College in January. Catholic Charities has used $300 from the Neediest Cases Fund to help pay for books. She plans to run track, move onto campus and continue working. “I get excited,” she said. “I can’t wait to go to school.” Meanwhile, she stays in touch with her family, calling her 14-year-old brother every morning at 6, to wake him up in time to get to his high school in the Bronx. Her mother leaves at 5 a.m. for her job in a Hunts Point laundry, and her father is still looking for work. But Covenant House may be hard pressed to provide such opportunities for the growing number of homeless young people arriving at its door. In the last three months alone, it had 450 new residents, 27 percent higher than in the same period last year. Ms. Blas doesn’t even want to think about where she would be without the youth shelter. “I don’t think I’d have a job, or be heading to school, or have had a shower this morning, or have food to eat or anything like that,” she said. How to Help Checks payable to The NewYork Times Neediest CasesFund may be sent to: 4 ChaseMetrotech Center, 7th FloorEast, Lockbox 5193, Brooklyn,N.Y. 11245. All gifts are acknowledged;special lettersare not possible. Checks intendedfor a particular Neediestagency should be writtento and mailed to the agency,noting that it is a Neediest gift. BROOKLYN BUREAU OF COMMUNITY SERVICE 285 Schermerhorn Street Brooklyn, NY 11217 (718) 310-5600 THE CATHOLIC CHARITIES OF THE ARCHDIOCESE OF NEW YORK 1011 First Avenue New York, NY 10022 (212) 371-1000 CATHOLIC CHARITIES, DIOCESE OF BROOKLYN AND QUEENS 191 Joralemon Street Brooklyn, NY 11201 (718) 722-6000 THE CHILDREN'S AID SOCIETY 105 East 22d Street New York, NY 10010 (212) 949-4800 THE COMMUNITY SERVICE SOCIETY OF NEW YORK 105 East 22d Street New York, NY 10010 (212) 254-8900 THE FEDERATION OF PROTESTANT WELFARE AGENCIES, INC 281 Park Avenue South New York, NY 10010 (212) 777-4800 UJA-FEDERATION OF NEW YORK Church Street Station P.O. Box 4100 New York, NY 10261-4100 (212) 980-1000 For instructions on how to donatestock to the fund, call(212) 556-1137 or fax (212) 730-0927. No agents or solicitors are authorizedto seek contributionsfor The New York Times NeediestCases Fund. The Times pays the fund'sexpenses, so all contributions godirectly to the charities, whichuse them to provide services andcash assistance to the poor. Contributions aredeductible from federal, state andcity income taxes to the extentpermitted by law. To delay may mean to forget.

Evictions
Covenant House
New York Times Neediest Cases Fund
Families and Family Life
Children and Youth
Colleges and Universities
Harlem (NYC)


E.U. Leaders Chart Future as David Cameron Leaves Brussels

Abstract: BRUSSELS — With Britain’s prime minister omitted for the first time, European Union leaders at a summit meeting wrestled on Wednesday with an existential question: how to salvage a venture that has provided peace and relative prosperity to 500 million people but has lost public support. “We all need to wake up and smell the coffee,” President Dalia Grybauskaite of Lithuania said at the start of private talks in Brussels on how to relaunch the European Union after the shock of Britain’s vote last week to leave. In the absence of Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain, who was already back in London after attending an initial day of talks, the group’s remaining 27 leaders all agreed that the European Union needs to change the way it works if it is to curb a rising tide of populism driven in large part by hostility toward Brussels. Presenting the leaders with his own analysis of why 52 percent of Britons had voted to withdraw from the European Union, Mr. Cameron, at a somber dinner late Tuesday, said the main reason was immigration. Polls in other countries show deep opposition to an influx of foreigners. But reducing immigration, or at least the right of European Union citizens to move wherever they want in the bloc, is currently impossible, because the free movement of citizens is an inviolable principle of the whole European project. At the same time, slowing the flow of migrants from outside Europe is something that officials in Brussels consider a notable success. It took a long time and many meetings, but, under a controversial deal with Turkey, last year’s flood of nearly a million people into Europe through Greek islands has slowed to a trickle. Migrants are still arriving in Europe after hazardous journeys across the Mediterranean from North Africa, but they are far fewer than the number who arrived last year through Greece — the people used by campaigners in Britain to rally opposition to the European Union. With no easy fixes to Europe’s public image and no consensus on what a reformed union might look like, the main agreement reached on Wednesday was familiar: to hold another meeting in Bratislava, Slovakia, in September. In a final statement, the leaders acknowledged that the British referendum “creates a new situation for the European Union,” and that “many people express dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs.” Europeans, they added, “expect us to do better when it comes to providing security, jobs and growth, as well as hope for a better future.” Changing a complicated system that has three presidents, two seats of Parliament in cities hundreds of miles apart and, at least until Britain formally departs, 28 member countries, was never going to be decided in a few hours. “The response to this new challenge for Europe will take time to find,” Frans Timmermans, a former foreign minister of the Netherlands and the first vice president of the union’s executive arm, the European Commission, cautioned earlier this week. “We must be brutally honest with ourselves as we debate the path forward. Today, there are more questions than answers.” Image President François Hollande of France at the European Union headquarters in Brussels on Tuesday. Credit Stephane De Sakutin/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images François Lafond, a professor of European integration at Sciences Po, the Paris university, said the task of finding answers was so big that it should be entrusted to a special convention of experts and officials who would be given at least six months to create a new approach. Otherwise, “the populists will continue to grow,” he said. “We have to give a clear signal of change.” A critical issue, Mr. Lafond said, is which functions should be returned to individual nations and which should fall within the powers of the union. Arguments over this division of labor have dogged the so-called European project since it began more than six decades ago in response to World War II, and have caused numerous crises. One of the most serious came in 1965, when President Charles de Gaulle of France objected to proposals from Brussels that he saw as weakening national sovereignty and pushing Europe toward becoming a giant state. Infuriated by what he viewed as an intolerable infringement, he pulled French officials from the Brussels institutions of what was then the European Economic Community. Their departure, a narrow, bureaucratic version of Britain’s, became known as the empty chair crisis. It was resolved, as most European crises have been, through back-room haggling and an elaborate compromise ensuring that France would retain its national decision-making prerogatives on major issues. The crisis unleashed by the British vote, however, offers no bureaucratic fix, as it involves what have long been the European project’s most vulnerable points: its remoteness from ordinary people and lack of democratic legitimacy. The European Parliament, elected by popular vote since 1979, was meant to fill this gap. But given no power to actually introduce legislation, it is mostly seen as a noisy, expensive forum that merely approves measures proposed by the Commission. Perhaps the most significant role played by the European Parliament has been to provide a megaphone for some of the union’s most impassioned enemies, notably politicians from the U.K. Independence Party, or UKIP. The party — whose leader, Nigel Farage, and 23 followers hold seats in the assembly — campaigned fervently for Britain’s exit from the European Union. They and allies like Boris Johnson, the former mayor of London, call the European Union a meddling and alien force, a message that has resounded elsewhere, particularly France. Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s right-wing National Front party, wants the nation to hold its own referendum. France’s deeply unpopular Socialist president, François Hollande, who is struggling to rescue his own political future as well as Europe’s, said on Wednesday that drastic change was needed. “Keeping the status quo would be the worst,” he said, “because populists would continue to challenge Europe.” But many of the things Mr. Hollande and like-minded European politicians want to see, such as more pooling of resources from shared European funds — are anathema to Germany, the dominant power on the Continent, which wants to enforce fiscal prudence but resists moving toward a federal state. Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany shut the door on any overhaul involving the revision of European treaties, a laborious process that requires referendums and has often stoked anti-European sentiment. Ms. Merkel said Europe needed to recover its élan and inspire ordinary citizens with an ambitious vision, as the United States did with its space program. “When Russia, many years ago, sent the first people into space, America said, ‘Now we have to send someone to the moon,’” Ms. Merkel said, citing an observation she said a fellow leader had made in private discussions. “So we have to set a positive agenda, positive goals, and try to show we have an ambition, an aspiration to produce prosperity for our people.”