The Cork in Rush's Bat

I’ve been a true-blue, hard-core Marlins fan for several weeks now. I watched the Marlins/Cubs series religiously, which coincidentally is the same way I approach Church attendance, once a year, and during a specific season…but never mind that, we’re talking sports and politics right now.

I grew a passionate and ardent (is that redundant, or did I just repeat myself?), dislike for the Cubs, whom as I came to find out reside in Chicago, which is north of here (then again, everything is north of here) the moment I found out that they were a baseball team. This team, as it turned out, would be playing my beloved Marlins; which is a fish as are all championship teams in Florida, with the possible exception of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Florida State Seminoles, the University of Miami Hurricanes, the University of Florida Gators, the Jacksonville Jaguars, and perhaps several others. Cubs on the other hand, are apparently some species of goat, at least according to everything I saw written about them on Internet forums this past few weeks.

The fact that they came down from the north explained the gazillion fans in our stadium for their games, as everyone here is from the north, the north of course, being all north of here. It also explained why there never seemed to be any Marlin fans cheering for the Fish back in Chicago, most northbound travel by south Floridians dead ends in any motel in the general vicinity of Disney World that features a free continental breakfast, or in the case of my people, on any beach where we can dry our feet before the Border Patrol arrives.

My dislike for these Cubs grew as I watched my beloved Marlins play the perfect hosts, graciously allowing them to score runs at will, while in turn, in very unsportsmanlike manner I might add, they refused to return the favor. I understood their rudeness a tad better later, after reading about the frustration felt by Cubs players and fans at having played non-stop baseball with no significant results since the Taft administration. All these things, along with the fact that the inconvenient game scheduling caused many TIVo controversies between the games, Bachelor Bob in the evenings, and a similarly named sponge in the afternoons (or maybe, it was the other way around), didn’t help the goats from Chicago make many friends in this loyal Marlin household.

The most interesting aspects of America’s pastime to me are the unbelievable amount of trivia involved, the great anecdotes, and the fact that there are no actual Americans playing the game anymore; I was soon immersed in the sport, and learned an interesting fact about one of the stars of the goats from the windy city; he had apparently behaved badly somewhere along the way to the championship and broken a bat, exposing the corked center. This of course, is against League rules, as bats are quite expensive, and players are most certainly required to take better care of the team’s equipment.

This bit of news actually helped me be a better Dad in the eyes of my seven year-old, as I was finally able to explain to him exactly how they could make metal bats that weighed so little...corked centers. What I could not explain however, is how the goat superstar from Chicago had avoided being sent to the batter’s box, which as we had both learned from watching hockey some years ago when the Florida Panthers made the playoffs, is where players that behave badly get to serve their time-outs. We figured that he was much too important a goat for time-out, and he simply ignored the whole thing, pretending it never happened.

It was while listening to the radio one afternoon that I learned about the curious tradition of yelling “CORK!” anytime the aforementioned goat star shattered a bat. A series tradition unless of course, you were a fan of the Goats, in which case, you pretended that the whole cork thing had either been a huge misunderstanding, or had not happened at all. It does appear however, that even when the bat doesn’t break, the ghost of the cork rears its ugly head, and the opposing fans strive to discredit every hit made by the goat star.

I learned all these things while flipping stations between Bachelor Bob, the similarly named sponge, the ball games, and the news, where a story about a political commentator who had once been hired to do commentary on sports shows, was also getting a lot of coverage.

You remember this guy. It was the guy who made an observation about the fact that A) some quarterback was not as good as everyone said he was, and B) that he was black. The statements, while being true in and of themselves, mentioned in the same sentence became a truth that everyone wanted to pretend did not exist. So he had to quit commenting on the politics of sports, and return to commenting strictly on the sport of politics.

Well, in the middle of the series, this guy’s right smack dab in the news again.

From everything I was able to gather, it seems that he had himself been playing fast and loose with the rules, and someone exposed him. He issued an apology and secluded himself from his job in an attempt to either escape further scrutiny, or maybe just trying to do the right thing. However, from the looks of things, the other team won’t let this just slide by unnoticed, and they’re jumping up and down yelling, “Cork!” at every opportunity.

This led me to think that perhaps, he should have corked it, and his fans could have made the whole thing out to be a huge misunderstanding, or even that it had not happened at all, which was after all, good enough for the goat with the cork in the bat. However, the commentator took the illogical route once again, and opted to tell the truth, which, as we see illustrated so often these days, is not a good thing to do.

Things however, seem to have a funny way of working themselves out, and in the same way that the goat with the cork failed to achieve significant results after playing possum, the commentator being played as a scapegoat for not having corked it, will probably find significance in his seclusion, and come back swinging.

The other team of course, will never allow him to forget his rule breakage, and try to taint his game by constantly reminding everyone of his past transgressions. In an attempt to discredit every point made by the political commentator, and maybe even to make him out to be a hypocrite, and a master of the art of double speak.

I’m excited and looking forward to the upcoming All South Florida World Series between the Marlins, and our other home team, los Yankis.

In other words, tyranny is fine as long as it is conducted in accordance to YOUR political ideology.

You stated the above after quoting my:

"That is fine so long as every item in this statistic was conservative."

You left off the operative term. My statement was: "That is fine so long as every item in this statistic was conservative and Constitutional."

How could something which is Constitutional be tyrannical?

How could something which is un-Constitutional be normal or acceptable?

You asked for more examples:

I am sure you are familar with the phrase "tyranny of the majority". Polls show that a majority of citizens support this socialized medicine idea of the "prescription drug benefit".

The democrats want it. The republicans want it but they disagree on the details so they are in the process of compromising.

Socialized medicine is un-Constitutional therefore compromise is not normal or acceptable.

Regards

J.R.

"How could something which is Constitutional be tyrannical?"

When the existing interpretation of the Constitution subjects a segment of the population to tyranny.

At the time of the drafting and implementation of the Constitution there were slaves in the United States, women did not posses the rights and priviledges of all American citizens as guaranteed by the Constitution, people of color could be discriminated against in housing, employement, and even the seating arrangement in a bus or restaurant BY LAW, there was child labor.

These things existed because there was nothing in the Constitution that made them illegal, thus, things like Jim Crow laws were in fact constitutional.

The people who fought a revolution, forged a nation, and drafted the Constitution never intended their Constitution to stand unchallenged and unchanged for all times, they themselves created the ability, within the document itself, for future generations to change that Constitution.

Imagine that the people who believed in freedom above all other things, would have set in place a system wherein their opinions would rule the future generations of Americans for all time to come.

People with different opinions than ours have exactly the same right that we have to demand change, even to the Constitution, and that is tyhe one thing written in stone by the Founders.

So, when you make a statement qualifying the interpretation of the Constitution as being on one end of the political spectrum, then it becomes unconstitutional because it seeks to impose your interpretation on those who do not agree with it.

I gotta say this for Pudge, he does make for exciting baseball. The fact that one-in-five pitches makes it to the backstop, combined with his powerful arm, makes for some very interesting plays.

The amazing thing is that the Yankees, who should be very familiar with his abilities, seem to be caught flat-footed by his arm. They are going to have to review some film. That play where he threw over Aaron Boone to get Posada at second for a strike 'em out, throw 'em out double play was sheer poetry. I still don't know how he did that!

You are correct that when the Constitution was written, slaves were considered to be property and not citizens.

Imagine that the people who believed in freedom above all other things, would have set in place a system wherein their opinions would rule the future generations of Americans for all time to come.

It is easy to imagine such a system because it is based on the concept of unalienable rights and that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men.

un-al-ien-a-ble: adj.
Not to be separated, given away, or taken away; inalienable:

It seems in your view that if prevailing public opinion was to repeal the Constitution by ammendment and instead elect a permanent supreme ruler that would both be within the vision of the founders and would not represent tyranny.

I don't think so.

Regards

J.R.

"It seems in your view that if prevailing public opinion was to repeal the Constitution by ammendment and instead elect a permanent supreme ruler that would both be within the vision of the founders and would not represent tyranny."

Imagine that!

The Founders setting in place a system whereas the will of the people could overthrow the current government, and establish a new one in its place?

Preposterous!

That would be downright revolutionary!

Congratulations.

You have sucessfully diverted the discussion:

1) from the reaction of the (now silent) drug warriors to Limbaugh's problem.

2) from the impossibility of defining as principled conservatism support for a party that continually serves up socialistic programs.

3) to the assertion that the repeal of the Constitution represents the pinnacle of liberty.

Seems that in your book God given rights are alienable after all.

I give up.

Regards

J.R.

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