Baseball and Politics on Opening Day 2016
Our long national nightmare is over. Winter has finally given up the ghost and the seasons have begun to change. Today is a day of renewal, a day of hope, when the skies seem brighter, the birdsong sweeter and the air just a bit fresher.
It’s Opening Day.
Today, everybody is equal. We’re all in 1st place. The heartbreak of last year is long forgotten, and hope springs eternal that this could be the year that the boys of summer go all the way. When dreams of a pennant aren’t so far fetched, even if you’re a Cubs fan. The fevered idiocy that has gripped the country this presidential cycle doesn’t seem as important as starting lineups, pitching rotations and being home by 7:05 to see an evening game.
Far off in the distant future, when historians look back on America and the contributions we made to civilization, they will remember a handful of things. The Declaration of Independence and its sweeping pronouncement of equality. Our Constitution, which took the idea of representative democracy out of stuffy French philosophy books and put it into practice. Jazz, the only true American musical art form. And, finally, baseball – America’s game.
There is a uniquely American beauty to baseball, one that the patriot and the politician in all of us can appreciate. There are plenty of team sports out there – football, basketball, hockey, and that game where you can only use your feet that sucks. There are plenty of sports that focus on individual achievement – golf, tennis, figure skating, among many others. But there are no other games that merge the two. On defense, in baseball you work as a team. On offense, it is one batter vs. one pitcher, and a duel for individual supremacy. It’s a game, where we celebrate rugged individualism while also recognizing the importance of team play. It is the only organized sport where the defense has the ball. E pluribus unum, on a ball field.
In a time when America is as divided as we have been since the Civil War, baseball is one thing that unites us all – rich and poor, black and white, rural and urban, Republican and Democrat. It is the one thing that can bring together Trump and Kasich supporters, Hillary and Bernie supporters, Tea Party and Progressives.
It’s also one of the few places where we still remember what it’s like to be loyal. In these days of loyalty oaths and pledges to support the nominee, it feels as though loyalty is something in short supply. Republicans are quick to turn on our leaders if they don’t do what we want. People who have spent years supporting an elected official are willing to turn on him the minute he steps out of line. But those same people … ask those same people which team they support. If they’re actual Americans and not communists, they’ll tell you – and it will be the same team they grew up watching, the stories of visits to ballgames and things they remember will pour out. No matter how long the team has been crap, no matter how many dumb trades and mistakes they’ve made, no matter how many times they’ve felt betrayed by strikes and greedy owners, the loyalty to that team remains. “Sure,” they say, “these guys are bums. But they’re OUR bums.”
As this presidential cycle has spun out of control, many of us in the Republican party are looking at our loyalty to the party and trying to decide if we can remain loyal. We are contemplating what to do if the unthinkable actually happens. For those of us, like me, who have spent years trying to build the party up, reach out to under-served populations and show the world what a thinking, compassionate and welcoming Republican party can be, the prospect of Donald Trump or Ted Cruz being our nominee is devastating. All our hard work, time and effort could be wiped away like a child’s hard work and time on the beach, washed away by the tide. For many, including me, it is making us question whether the GOP is still the party they joined in their youth – whether they can continue to lend their names to a party with a nominee they don’t merely dislike but find antithetical to their entire political philosophy.
Yet we never harbor those same feelings about our baseball teams. I remember the 1988 season, where my Orioles began 0-21, on our way to our first 100 loss season since the team moved from St. Louis in 1954 (it was also our last 100 loss season). I remember being angry when Peter Angelos ran off Jon Miller from the broadcast booth, when we lost Mike Mussina to the Yankees, and more recently when we traded Nick Markakis, a franchise player in the old, pre-free agency mold. But each time, my loyalty to the team kept me turning out, cheering and following, just like I’d been doing since the first time my Dad and I walked hand-in-hand into Memorial Stadium to watch Eddie, Cal, Jim and the boys play. The team, its history, and my connection to it mattered more than these bad decisions that made me angry. The same was true when the Nationals came to town. It’s fun to watch a ball game in your own city, but to me, Baltimore will always be my team.
Just like the GOP will always be my party. Even if Trump gets nominated. Even if I have to walk away temporarily because I won’t have my name sullied by a contemporary relationship with his. This party, like my ball club, has been a part of my identity for so long, you can never truly walk away from it.
And I know that even if we nominate Trump or Cruz, and march to November to be blown out in an epic loss to the Democrats, there’s always another election in Virginia. There will be more elections in the future, and a loss now isn’t the end of the world, no matter how many times we hear the old “this is the most important election blah blah blah” platitudes between now and Election Day.
As fans of the old Brooklyn Dodgers used to say, “wait ’til next year!” I feel the same way about politics. Dem Bums, no matter how many hearts they broke in Brooklyn and now in LA, put together 21 pennant wins and 6 World Series titles. If the Dodgers can do it, so can the GOP.
Opening Day reminds us all that there is always a tomorrow, and that our brightest days are always ahead of us.
Let’s play ball!
