By Laurie Baron
MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin — The second day of the Republican National Convention coincided with baseball’s All-Star Game. Worried that most viewers would watch the game rather than the convention, Donald Trump challenged Joe Biden’s team to a one inning game of baseball pitting the Milwaukee MAGAs against Biden’s team which Trump dubbed the Washington National Insiders. Here are some highlights.
Trump placed himself in the cleanup spot of the batting order confident that he would do better than the Republicans who ran against him in the primary. He ordered everyone who batted before and after him to strike out so even if he only managed a bunt, fans would be impressed that he was the best hitter on his team.
He selected Marco Rubio to be the leadoff hitter to win the Latino vote. Nevertheless, Trump also pledged that if he were elected, he would deport all Latino major league players who, after all, were occupying positions red-blooded white American athletes should have. When Ron DeSantis batted next and struck out, Trump told the announcer to remind the audience that Ron struck out in the primaries too. Although Trump detests Chris Christie, he invited him to bat third so Trump would look thinner when batting after him. He placed his VP pick J.D. Vance at the bottom of the order to teach him to never upstage his boss. Parenthetically, JD stands for Junior Donald. In a gesture of team unity, Trump let Nikki Haley on the field in the capacity of ball girl.
Finally, the moment arrived when Trump stepped up to bat. Biden had been scheduled to pitch but was replaced by Kamala Harris after he was unable to throw the ball far enough to reach home plate. Biden initially put her in the lineup as the Designated Hitter. She fired a fastball at Trump which grazed him and knocked him down. He stood up and demanded that he be allowed to run all the bases instead of just walking to first. The plate umpire Aileen Cannon awarded him all four bases and the MAGA crowd cheered wildly as the score was 1 to nothing.
When the MAGAs took the field, Trump played at first base because he always wants to be first. Accordingly, he planned to contest the outcome of the game if his team didn’t win too. Vance was the pitcher, but he promised to pitch the same way Trump would have done if he had pitched the game. Biden’s team had a strong lineup with Barack Obama, Hakeem Jeffries, and Gavin Newsome as the 1,2, and 3 hitters. Each of them singled, but the umpires, who were all Trump appointees, called their hits fouls. They also called pitches that badly missed the strike zone balls. Thus, the game ended in a 1 to nothing win for the MAGAs just as the oddsmakers had predicted. Biden’s players wondered if maybe he shouldn’t be the team captain when they play the MAGAs later this year in the Fall classic.
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Laurie Baron is professor emeritus at San Diego State University.
Well said.
On to the Fall Classic….