Written by Stephen Bowers
This whiny, self-serving pansy culture into which America has immersed herself is simply getting out of hand.
I was watching a baseball game the other night, and heard some commentator quote a complaint from a pitcher about a hitter electing to bunt. The pitcher thought the hitter bunting was unfair. You need some background for this to make any sense: The defense (to which the pitcher belongs, for the uninitiated out there) had gone into “shift” mode. The “shift” is a recent development in the favorite American pastime. It involves moving all the infielders onto one side of the infield. If a batter historically hits to the right side, the second baseman moves close to first base, the shortstop moves to second base, and the third baseman moves to shortstop. It looks strange, but I guess the old Boys of Summer think it’s a good idea. The opposite thing occurs if the batter tends to hit to the left side. Then, I think the pitcher has to cover first base, because the whole idea is defeated if no one makes the force-out throw to first. So, someone has to cover first. Hopefully, the pitcher doesn’t fall down.
Now, the “unfairness” accusation came in the other night because some hitter had the temerity to do what this kind of defense is screaming for: He went against everything sacred and laid down a sweet little bunt to the undefended “un-shifted” side of the infield (You can expect to see more of this. Those MLB managers are pretty sharp).
Unfortunately, this sort of thing gets ruled as an infield hit, and the pitcher’s record suffers abominably. Ignominiously scarred forever. No Cooperstown for you, pal. So, the pitcher whined his complaint about unfairness. What the heck?! Get serious — the idea of baseball is to win.
Sure, it’s a pretty sport. The grass is lovely and nicely maintained. The uniforms are cute. The obsessive record-keeping has a funny, satisfying quality to it. But, winning is still paramount. The leagues don’t pay those big bucks to Cubans and Mexicans just because they are doing jobs that American kids don’t wanna do. No, siree. If a manager wasn’t smart enough to see the glaring weakness in a “shift” defense, then my dog could probably beat him at chess.
The guy laid down a bunt to the unprotected side of the infield and trotted to first base. Probably didn’t work up a sweat. And then the whining started.
Unfortunately, what many of us have long feared is coming to pass. The desire of “college educated” teaching persons to avoid hurt feelings (and foster self-esteem, whatever that is) in second graders by giving all a “nice job” ribbon, even if the kid didn’t participate, has begun creeping up into the big leagues. For “liberals/commies/socialists,” the idea of “equal opportunity” has come to mean “equal outcome.” This is nothing new, and its seeds have been around since John Dewey.
But don’t worry. So long as money is a part of professional baseball, the MLB will never be anything but the purest meritocracy. For all the politically correct trash you hear from the baseball broadcast booth, the real function of baseball is to have a World Series winner. Every year. That won’t change. And the color of the skin of the winner(s), nor the heritage of their last name, will never really matter.
And did you see John Kerry being interviewed on Fox recently? It was a riot. He was describing how the Russky supported Ukrainian separatists who were policing the crash site of the passenger airliner which was shot down (Everyone in the Free World, with the exception of the Leader of the Free World, agreed Putin might as well have personally triggered the shoot-down missile. Even Kerry seemed to understand this). Unintended — sicko — humor emerged when Kerry began letting his true feelings out, which can be very dangerous for a liberal/pinko/socialist. He was describing the unbelievably inept and unprofessional manner in which the “soldiers/miners” were policing the crash site. They were walking around the wreckage and giving the impression they were in a used car lot in a bad part of town, just kickin’ the tires. They can’t be blamed too strongly. They have little or no experience with dealing with human carnage occasioned by terrorists. I haven’t heard yet whether the separatists have an Islamic contingency in their midst. What a shocker that would be.
Kerry complained that these “soldiers/miners” engaged in collecting putrefying body parts “were drunk — really drunk” and “were unceremoniously tossing the dead into trucks.” I guess the whole scene bordered on being “Gosnellesque” (There’s a new word for the lexicon). Kerry took great umbrage (although he still managed to look stuffy and disengaged). Then things got even more funny.
A very interesting Kerry observation popped up when he was asked if America (as if Kerry and America are fungible) was going to give assistance to the Ukrainians (to counteract the Russky assistance which had suddenly become so apparent). Kerry said, “No…we/America/I…will not be sending lethal hardware to the Ukrainians.”
That’s nice.
Of course, none of this is really humorous (unless you’re a liberal/commie/puke who gets enthused and all giggly over the thought of filling dumpsters behind Planned Parenthood clinics with freshly aborted “fetuses”).
But the irony/humor factor increased dramatically when the Fox interviewer pulled up an “off-camera” moment of Kerry making a comment about the recent and ongoing Israeli strikes into Gaza to clean out Hamas and their numerous “meeesilles,” which they have been raining down on Israel forever. The Fox guy played the impromptu and unguarded “aside” comment Kerry had made during a commercial break. His words were “Yeah…some &$%3@! ‘pinpoint’ strike, huh?” This I took to mean the Israeli strikes had been far too effective, accurate, and much too “disproportionate” (“Disproportionate” is a buzzword Obama and his buddies use when they think the wrong side of a conflict is winning). The Fox guy played the short clip, and to his credit, Kerry stayed cool. Maybe he just didn’t realize how bad Fox had just made him look to the rest of us. Or maybe I got it wrong. At any rate, it was sort of funny in the sick, twisted world America has come to inhabit.
Then Fox went back to video snips of the separatist soldiers/miners tossing bodybags “unceremoniously” about (some of the bodybags were very much smaller than you would expect a bag to be which contained a “body”). The soldiers/miners were now seemingly more humane. They were now unceremoniously tossing the bags, large and small, into refrigerated rail cars, which was generally considered to be a big improvement.
After devoting 40 seconds of speech time to the Russky shoot-down, Obama returned to his usual inventory of bad dull jokes. Then, he was whisked away to two more fundraisers in New York.
Later, dudes. Keep it “tranquil” like Kerry.
