Opinion: Now taking the oath: Maury Wills!
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This is reason enough to be in the state Capitol on a Sunday morning: Maury Wills! The Dodger stolen base champ from the 1960s and into the ‘70s was in the Assembly chamber as a special guest of Jack O’Connell, the re-elected superintendent of public instruction. O’Connell has the reputation of harboring intense interest in three subjects: education, the band Chicago (he’s a friend of the members and, in fact, a bit of a groupie), and the Dodgers. The group was drafted into at least one re-election fundraiser concert, and there’s nothing wrong with a little ’25 or 6 to 4.’ But if he’s got Wills on his side, too, O’Connell’s running with the right crowd. The Baseball Hall of Fame will continue to cheat itself until it recognizes that Wills belongs. We’ll save our Pete Rose discussion for another time.
O’Connell grabbed the Assembly chamber for a warm and low-key weekend inauguration, squeezing in his friends and supporters just ahead of the John Garamendi lieutenant governor extravaganza later on in the day, over on the Senate side. Administering the oath was Willie Brown, the former Assembly speaker who came to town Friday to MC Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s second inauguration. Brown just can’t seem to leave. He’s officiating again tomorrow at Bill Lockyer’s oath-taking as state treasurer.
Except for renewing his call for an improved preschool program in California, O’Connell kept his remarks general. He spoke of students’ needs not just for better education, but for good healthcare and a clean environment. Sounds like a guy who will be termed out in four years and has to start planning for his next office now. He won the state’s only non-partisan statewide office in a landslide, capturing the whole election in the June primary. We’ll see if he has the desire--or the goods--to go for the state’s top job in 2010. It’s not yet clear whether the Maury Wills/Chicago thing will be enough to sew up the Walt Alston-era/pop-rock demographic.