How I Solved The Mystery Of The Fan With The Golden Gun Who Captured Gadhafi

Yankee fan Mohamed Albebe then...and now.

By BARRY MILLMAN

"The gods decree a heavyweight match only once in a while and a national election only every four years, but there is a World Series with every revolution of the earth around the sun. And in between, what varied pleasure long drawn out!"

-- Jacques Barzun, historian and Presidential Medal Of Freedom winner, from God's Country and Mine, 1954

The World Series is still a ways off, but thankfully we've reached that celestial moment in the earth's revolution around the sun when pitchers and catchers report, and a biological alarm clock within baseball fans the world over rings the alert America's game is once more at hand. To mark the occasion, I'd like to share a newsy tidbit about a Yankee fan many of you may recall and my quest to clear his name. A few weeks ago,  I happened to catch a report by BBC foreign correspondent Gabriel Gatehouse on his search for the gold-plated pistol carried by Libyan dictator Moammar El-Gadhafi when he was caught and killed by rebels on October 20, 2011 in the battle of Sirte, his hometown. [Note: With all due respect to the BBC, the N.Y. Post and at least a dozen other media outlets with differing stylebooks on the issue, I've chosen to use the late colonel's own personal preference for the English spelling of his name here. It's my blog and I'll spell how I want to.] Though most baseball fans were, like me, no doubt otherwise occupied at that particular historical moment by more mundane domestic matters (his capture occurred  roughly about the time the Rangers were tying up the World Series at a game apiece with a 9th-inning two-run rally over the Cardinals), the next day's global news was dominated by the events transpiring in Libya. And accompanying many of the reports were images of a young man wearing a baseball cap bearing the unmistakable logo of the New York Yankees triumphantly brandishing Gadhafi's personal sidearm; a gold-plated Browning/FN Hi-Power Mark III  pistol. Due at least in part to some  media outlets mistakenly naming Mohamed Albebe (again, his spelling) as Gadhafi's executioner rather than the guy who simply discovered him hiding in a sewer pipe and captured him, (looking at you, N.Y. Post), it didn't take long for Mohamed to become a social phenomenon. "So, for at least one Yankees fan, it turned out to be a pretty good October." – Jay Leno "If he'd had a Boston Red Sox hat on he probably would have missed." – David Letterman Bad  jokes and the Post's  wreckless distortion of Mohamed's role in history aside, though, there also arose considerable discourse  over  whether he was, in fact, an actual fan of the Yankees or even of baseball -- the overwhelming consensus snidely suggesting he wasn't. Max Fisher, a former editor of  The Atlantic, in an online story for the magazine ironically focused on ripping the Post's misleading depiction of Mohamed's role, openly doubted the veracity of Mohamed's Yankees fanhood, ruminating: “I have found traveling in the developing world that Yankees caps are prolific, but knowledge of American baseball teams is not,” and for added support included a tweet from a Saudi Arabian national working for NPR in Washington, D.C.  at the time (and now a Wall Street Journal correspondent in his homeland) who opined: Elsewhere, in the Daily News,  Corky Siemaszko surmised Mohamed's cap was a charitable donation from World Vision, an organization that dumps "unwanted shirts and caps" from various American sports leagues in "third-world countries" where "clothes are scarce  and the recipients can't afford to be picky."  The New York Times' J. David Goodman, scoffed that Mohamed's ball cap appeared to be "in fairly pristine shape for a dusty war zone"  (while somehow failing to note the generally clean and well-groomed nature of  pretty much everyone else at the scene of Gadhafi's capture -- with the exception, of course, of the colonel who, you know, was hiding in the sewer pipe). Goodman dispensed with the question in a dismissive comparison to criminals wrapped in a haughty plug for his employer: "Mr. Bibi did not explain his choice of headwear and appears to have given no interviews since his early conversation with The BBC.  But however the gray cap got there, it was not the first time a Yankees hat found itself far from the sports pages. As the Times reported in 2010, the hats often appear on the heads of those arrested in New York." Well, Messrs. Goodman, Siemaszko, Omran and Fisher, as professional journalists interested in the facts you'll all be gratified to learn that I can now confirm all your spitballing assumptions concerning Mohamed missed the strike zone. By a lot.  After watching the BBC's fascinating report on Mr. Gatehouse's quest for the golden gun culminate in a face-to-face meeting and interview with Mohamed himself, I contacted Mr. Gatehouse on a quest of my own: To learn once and for all if Mohamed was indeed a fan of baseball or the Yankees. I asked the British journalist if he had, by any chance, raised the matter of the baseball cap with the young freedom fighter. He replied he hadn't and graciously offered to put me in touch with Mohamed so I could ask him about it, which I did.  The following is a transcript of our online chat. [Note: Mohamed's fine grasp of  English is self-evident in the BBC report. I was both surprised and relieved, though, to find his ability to communicate with me via the written word -- a more difficult skill -- equally as good. I've made only a few minor edits to his responses in punctuation and grammar for the sake of readability that in no way affect their content.] Me: Hi Mohamed. My name is Barry Millman. I write about baseball and the New York Yankees. Gabriel Gatehouse told me you would be expecting me to contact you. I'd like to ask you a few questions for a story I'd like to write about the Yankees cap you were wearing when you found the golden gun. Would that be alright with you? Mohamed:  Hey. Yes, Gabriel told me yesterday.  Me: It's a real pleasure to meet you. My first question is where did you get that Yankees cap? Mohamed: I bought it in my country. Me: How old were you when you got it? . Mohamed: I was 15 years.  [Note: He was 17 in 2011 when he captured Gadhafi, so he bought it two years earlier in 2009; the season the Yankees won their last World Series.] Me:  Are you a fan of the Yankees? Do you follow American baseball? Have you ever played? Mohamed: I didn't play because I had an accident, but I liked watching it on TV.  Me: I'm so sorry to hear that. So you watched American baseball on TV and became a fan of the Yankees? Mohamed: Yes.  Me: When you went to buy a baseball cap why did you choose a Yankees cap? Mohamed: I really liked the cap and I like the Yankees.  Me: I liked it too. Do you have any favorite players on the Yankees? Mohamed: Sorry but I don't remember their names and for the last three years I haven't been able to watch. Me: Thats ok. I'm sure you are busier now that you are older. Are you still going to school? Mohamed: I'm still studying. I studied in Malta for a year last year. Me: Wow. That's great. What kind of profession are you studying for? Mohamed: The Faculty of Economics in Libya. Me: You're studying to be a professor of economics? That's impressive. Congratulations! Do you still have that Yankees cap? Mohamed: No I don't. Me: What happened to the cap? Mohamed: My mom lost my cap. Me: No! That's so sad. And she didn't get you another one?? I'll send you one if you like.  Mohamed: I would be glad if you sent me another cap from the Yankees. Me: It would be my pleasure. Just send me an address to ship it to and I will.  Mohamed:  I will do. And I wish to meet you and watch the Yankees live. Me: I would love to meet you and take you to a Yankee game.  My treat.  If you come to the U.S. you'd better let me know so I can make the arrangements!  Mohamed: Really thank you my friend  I'm glad to hear that. Now that that's settled, batter up! You can email Barry Millman at nyyankeefanforever@ymail.com and follow him on Twitter at @nyyankeefanfore.

My IBWAA Hall Of Fame Ballot - And Why PEDs Weren't A Factor In My Voting

By BARRY MILLMAN

Hall of Fame voting results for the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America to which I belong will be announced Wednesday; and in the interests of transparency and absent any ballgames to watch or deals to write about (and probably also to tweak a select group of judgmental folks a wee bit) I present here my ballot. 

Rather than make a point-by-point case for each of the choices I've made -- an approach that's been pounded into dust by many baseball writers far more meticulous than me and still didn't save them from a thrashing -- I'll just preface my ballot with three FYIs that hopefully will explain the names that follow. Please read them first, and then you can raise your Louisville Slugger in righteous indignation and beat me like a pinata with a clear conscience.  You may not agree with me but, hey, I still believe MLB's pace-of-game rules were just a plot to curtail between-inning bathroom breaks and save wear and tear on stadium plumbing.  So I'm used to being on the minority side of great debates.

First FYI: Be advised Jeff Bagwell, Mike Piazza and Tim Raines are prior inductees by the IBWAA and therefore no longer needlessly languish on our ballot like they have been on the Baseball Writers Assocation of America ballot awaiting their rightful places in Cooperstown; creating excuses for blocking still other worthy players. So when you don't see them here, that's why.

Second FYI: I'm an unmerciful stats guy and I believe the Hall is for the best of the best for an extended period, not for the very goods or for the guys who flashed or for the what might have beens. I don't discount counting stats because I believe a long career is an asset, but I do believe one-trick ponies better have some mighty impressive underlying metrics to go along with them, and if hanging around too long hurt those than it hurt those counting stats too. And unlike some, I give extra credit for wins, playing under the glare of big markets and in big moments, postseason success and, wherever applicable, for versatility because, at the end of the day, the game is all about winning and doing whatever it takes to get your team there. Stat mavens like to say there's no such thing as too much data, and those factors to me represent a type of excellence data even if it's not player-independent or doesn't neatly fit into a useable metric and so gets dismissed as small sample minutiae or simply folded into an existing metric and diluted into irrelevance. All things being equal, give me two guys with the same stats and metrics --  one being the best guy on a going-nowhere team; the second being the third-best guy on a championship team -- and that second guy is who I'm picking to play with in an offseason pickup game. I already know he's a winner, and who can say he wouldn't beat that first guy out for his job if they both had to compete for the same job on a new team next year? Baseball isn't a board game.

Third FYI: When it comes to all the performance-enhancing stuff, you should know right up front I consider myself a big picture guy and pretty forgiving; and if you want to come at me about the unfitness for induction of guys whose numbers you believe are inflated due to pharmaceutical or otherwise artificial means, then your list of names better include every player already in the Hall known or suspected to have done the same and your willingness to remove them first -- and that list better include every guy who ever took a pill, an injection or a swallow of something from some doctor, trainer or buddy who led them to believe it would help them play better, get over an illness faster or return from an injury sooner whether it actually did the job effectively or not.  

Mind you, I'm all for getting the PEDs that are known to cause irreparable harm to players out of the game. But I believe the Hall is a place to recognize and preserve historic career achievement; and after more than a century and a half of unchecked usage, I find it hypocritical the way many would-be jihadists are suddenly treating the institution like a deranged caliphate where some all-time great players must get beheaded on the doorstep based on the twisted argument that it possesses a nonexistent purity within its walls requiring protection from infidels. 

And if it's not the stats and just the idea that cheating in general makes a player unfit under the character clause that "other" voting body (the BBWAA) hypocritically clings to, you obviously are unfamiliar with the rogues gallery of miscreants who have earned induction despite blatant violations of the rules of both the game and society since the beginning of time  .

Personally, I would be tempted to join the zealots if they re-directed their daggers in the far more worthwhile battle to achieve segregation of the perpetrators and supporters of baseball's longtime war on men of color  -- a far more malignant  form of cheating that impacted stats on a far grander scale than all the drugs, doctored balls and bats and thrown games combined ever did -- through either an appropriate notation added to their plaques or a physical repositioning together in a symbolically darkened corner of the Hall; along with a concurrent push to encourage the Hall and MLB to fully subsidize the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City out of their ample coffers. 

But as I'm aware the Museum itself is vehemently against segregation of any kind anywhere, I'll just take an even strain with the zealots and let my ballot and the record book have the final say. 

Without further ados or adon'ts, here's the guys I checked on my ballot ... and because I'm jonesing for spring training and the promise of a new season on a chilly day at the moment, I'll present my choices by way of their rookie cards when they were all full of promise and nobody knew what amazing careers yet lay before them:

I went back and forth on a couple of the other guys on the ballot, but to me, these were the guys who were all slam-dunk no-brainers. Maybe I'll feel different about the bubble boys next year. And maybe I'll learn to pee faster and love the change of pace rules. You never know.

Congratulations to all this year's inductees. It's a heck of a gauntlet one has to run to get in, and in many ways an arbitrary one. So it's important to remember that no great player ever needs a hall to be famous -- and it's the record book and not writers that ultimately makes players immortal. 

You can email Barry Millman at nyyankeefanforever@ymail.com and follow him on Twitter at @nyyankeefanfore.