Sports and Politics

I often see connections between sports and politics. Politicians see this, too, and play on it. For instance, they attend sports events and have photo-ops with teams that win championships. President Bush attended the Daytona 500 for the NASCAR dads, while Kerry went snowboarding and cycling for....for, I have no idea, but he looked real cool. Kerry also posed with the Boston Red Sox after they won the World Series, but that ended after the winning pitcher Curt Schilling backed Bush. But, you can tell more about politicians from a baseball perspective.

Did you see President Bush throw out the first pitch at RFK for the Washington Nationals last month? Great throw over the plate (maybe a little high, but it’s harder with that protective vest he has to wear.) Just like his agenda, you knew that he could put it across. In contrast, did you see the clip of John Kerry throwing a baseball when he was running for President? If his pitches are like his campaign and his friends at MoveOn, then they are far to the left and in the dirt. Also, he threw like a girl. Maybe that impresses Jane Fonda, but not me.

Men can look at how someone throws and instantly know who will get his vote. In fact, we could quit worrying about problems with voting�confusing machines and instructions, long lines, required identification, going to the wrong polling place, and explaining how dead people voted solid for Democrats and in alphabetical order. (Of course, all those are just problems for the Democrats. Smart people don’t have those same issues.) To get around this and put in a new way to pick presidents, let’s just have the candidates go to the pitcher’s mound and show us what they can do.

Here’s how it works. You get one pitch for each state with a red ball for the tie-breaker. (You can’t have one ball per electoral vote because that exceeds the allowable pitch count unless you allow the Vice Presidents to step in as relievers and a judge to be the closer.) Getting back, whoever gets the most strikes wins! I’ve looked back over the elections and the candidates. This method would have gotten the same result for each election over the last fifty years--except when limp-wristed Jimmy Carter was elected. In that case, the baseball method would have proven to work better and would have saved this country four years of agony. Do you think some activist judge could re-interpret the Constitution to get this change?

Let’s hope it’s in place by the time Hillary runs for president in 2008. The Republicans could run Curt Schilling against her.