BERNIE SANDERS
I was thinking if I could make a baseball team out of the presidential candidates, what would it look like? Would the team be able to function and would it be successful?
Well, let’s look at that.
First of all, a team needs a mascot, a person who can’t play the game but is needed to be a rooter, somebody who could pick up the trash, fetch a water bottle, find a glove and get the right bat to the person batting.
That would be Jeb Bush. He’s likable, a good pet and wouldn’t do anything destructive, and he would stay out of the way if tensions got tight and emotions got to somebody.
All teams need somebody like Bush. He’s perfect for that role. No harm, no foul kind of guy.
Then we would have Mike Huckabee. He would be the loud mouth who knows nothing about the game but could rile up opponents by saying outrageous things. He’d be kind of like the late Billy Martin, although not within a continent of having the ability to play the game like Billy could. But he sure could get under the skin of your opponents.
Ted Cruz would be allowed on the team, but only for the laughs. He would constantly try to do away with the rules of the game and get rid of unnecessary things like base paths and a pitching mound. But he’d be fun to watch try to disrupt the game. Umpires would tire of him and hate him. Opponents would also hate Cruz. He’d be the Ty Cobb of our team, without any ability at all and disliked by all.
Donald Trump would help coach the team. He’d be the first base coach, the inspirational leader of the team who would tell everybody how great the game is, how great they are and how they are almost as great as he is.
The downside of Donald is that when we lose he would disown us. He’d say he didn’t lose, the team did. He would say he did great. He used the rules of the game to win and become great, the greatest of the game.
If this game was a carnival, he would be the barker, luring people in the gates of the stadium, taking their money, and laughing all the way to the bank.
He’d be great.
Ben Carson we would have to hide in faraway right field, beyond the fence. He would be our far-right-outfielder. He’s say crazy stuff in that quiet voice of his and after a while nobody would pay attention to him, if they did hear him.
But Ben would serve a purpose in a pinch. If a bench brawl erupted he would leads us into battle. He’d be the first one to the mound, ready to fight. We would have to make sure he was not carrying his knife because he has a tendency to stab people when he gets upset.
He would be valuable to us, though, because if he didn’t have a knife he would take all the punches for us so we wouldn’t get hurt. He would be the first (and only) one of us on the scene of the battle.
We need somebody to make up the rules and fib a bit, so Marco Rubio would fit that description for us. He can make up stories with the best of them and is very persuasive, which would come in handy with arguments with the umpires.
The only problem with Marco is that he has a tendency not to show up. We have to talk to him about that.
Rand Paul is another Ted Cruz. We might not need him because Cruz has already made a pitch to get rid of most things baseball. But if we want to reduce the bath paths to 40 feet or raise the pitching mound six inches and make larger bats, we could use him. Otherwise he could just hang with us as sort of like our little brother who doesn’t do any harm. We would buy him an ice cream cone once in a while if he was a good boy that day.
We need somebody like Chris Christie who could bend the rules and turn on the overnight sprinklers on the baseball diamond to make the field too wet to play on in case we were too hung over from last night’s party to play the game.
If we needed a few made-up stories to give us an edge, Christie would be invaluable to us.
John Kasich and Carly Fiorina could serve the same function. We need somebody in the dugout to be angry with borderline calls from the umpires and shout out our displeasure. They would be perfect because they can really shout out loudly, and they don’t mind making embarrassing statements.
That leaves Lindsey Graham and Bobby Jindal on the Republican side. They would be the party guys. They would serve no function during games because they have no obvious athletic skills, and we already have our mascot and our pet little brother.
Graham would be the master of ceremonies at the post-game party at the ‘Leaf or The Arena, wherever we go for drinks to down our sorrows or celebrate our ability to mismanage another game. He would be our Good Humor guy.
Jindal would be our cook. He could brew up some jambalaya, gumbo, shrimp Creole, Oysters Rockefeller and bread pudding and tell us while serving us how great a baseball player he is although we would never dare let him get near a glove or bat.
But that is Jindal. He’s all mumble, jumble and gumbo.
We would not have a lot to choose from on the Democratic side. We could use Hillary Clinton to prank our opponents. She could soften them up before we play them by telling them how great they are and how well she and her teammates will treat them. That will disarm them and get them to thinking she and her teammates are really great fellows and when she takes the field with us she will change and become what she really is, a heartless soul who will do anything legally and illegally to win the game and make herself and her teammates look good and have good fortune.
Clinton also can sweet talk big businesses to invest in our baseball program so we will never be without anything we need to make ourselves feel important and be well fed.
So she is a very valuable teammate. Just don’t’ cross her because she will dump you like a hot potato.
Martin O’Malley just wants to be liked. So we will humor him and allow him to play in late innings of blowouts. We might even allow him to use a glove.
Bernie Sanders is our secret weapon. If all else fails in our effort to steal a victory, we will sick Bernie on our opponents and umpires and he will tell them that they have to sacrifice for the common good and will have to give us half of all runs they score.
And if they steal a base, they will have to give it back. That’s a Bernie Rule.
When we play on the road, Bernie will make sure we get half of the gate receipts and half of all concession and merchandise sales. No cheating allowed. That’s another Bernie Rule.
And when we drink a beer at the post-game party, Bernie gets half.
So that’s it. Now I got to go to the YMCA to work out. I hope Bernie is there so he can do half of my workout.
Be well pal.
Be careful out there.
Have a great day.
You are loved.