Why Waste a Precious Vote?

Recently, a very good friend of mine let it be known that he was supporting a presidential candidate whom I had never heard of and whose name escapes me at the present.  He had made a donation to the man’s campaign.  He had suggested to me and others that this man is the ideal candidate because of his platform—ending the war in Afghanistan; bring all U.S. troops home; universal health care; equal pay for women; taxation of the rich, with no loopholes; equal rights for everyone, including same sex marriages for all who desire it; and the unqualified right of everyone to worship as they choose, be they Christian, Jew, Muslim, or whatever—all of which I agree with and support.  He was quite convincing in his appeal to me and others in our circle to donate to and support this man in his campaign.

Many of my friends from Wisconsin have supported and voted for Dennis Kucinich, a man whose politics and beliefs I totally agree with—especially the establishment of a Department of Peace.  However, I am also a realist and feel that, when I cast my ballot for president, it is something I have to take very seriously and not toss it away on a candidate who stands absolutely no chance of being elected.  I may as well not vote at all.  I want my vote to be the counted and to make a difference.

For example, in 1844 in backwoods Indiana a dying man had his sons take him to the polls in order that he might cast his ballot for David Kelso, a lawyer who had successfully defended him against a murder charge.  Kelso, a Democrat, won election by that one vote.  The Indiana Senate was evenly split between Democrats and Whigs.  At that time, the various state legislatures elected the respective U.S. Senators and the evenly split Indiana senate could not elect a Senator.  Kelso bolted the caucus, taking with him a Whig senator until, several weeks later, he returned and nominated Edward Hannigan as senator.  Kelso told his Democrat colleagues that, unless they supported him, he would vote with the Whigs.  Hannigan was then elected to the Senate.  The following year the U.S. Senate was debating over whether to admit Texas as a state.  The most prominent candidate before Hannigan had pledged to vote against Texas statehood.  Hannigan’s vote to admit Texas was the deciding vote.  Thus, it could be argued the vote of a dying man in the wooded hills of Indiana made Texas a state.

In the election of 2000, Florida had the dubious distinction of forcing the election into the hands of nine unelected people, due in large part to the seeming inability of many voters not grasping the importance of their vote.  As the votes were being counted and recounted, by the time the Supreme Court had halted the recount, the votes that had been counted showed that George W. Bush had received 2,912,790 votes; Al Gore 2,912,253 votes—a difference of 537 votes-- and Ralph Nader 97,488 votes.  If only 1 percent of those who voted for Nader had voted for Gore, the results may have been drastically different—and our world along with it.

There is no argument from me that our political system is grievously flawed and that there are moneyed forces at work trying to subvert the process and own it.  It is for us, the governed, to do what we can to keep our birthright to vote as American citizens.  The days of poll taxes are far behind us and now everyone who is eligible to vote has that right without regard to education, gender, race, religion, or any other qualification. 

While I respect anyone who votes his or her conscience, I would counsel them to make sure their vote will make a difference.  I admire those who vote their conscience and would not deny them that right.  I do not condemn them for it, but would remind them that for want of a nail, the shoe was lost…

Each and every vote cast does make a difference, only as long as it is not cast as a protest and not intended to make a difference.  Simply look back on Senator Hannigan and what one solitary man’s vote meant.

Heckling 101

Heckling and trash talking has been a part of sports, I dare say, since sports were first invented by the Greeks back in ancient times.  The practice has evolved over the millenniums into the trash talking current day athletes partake in nowadays.  I am not, nor never was, the most accomplished of athletes.  I enjoy, more than any other sport, baseball--the sport I played in both high school and college.  Nowadays, I enjoy playing in a senior softball league of men (and the occasional woman) over 60.  But, beyond that, I enjoy being a season ticket holder and attending Bradenton Marauders baseball games, the Marauders being the high Class A minor league team of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The first rule of heckling is to know and understand that baseball, especially professional baseball, is a family game and affair.  For that reason, profanity is strictly forbidden.  In addition, attacks on a player’s personal life and family life are also out of bounds.   The only exception to this is if a player cheats, such as using performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) or other banned substances to make him play better.

I must credit my interest in heckling to my friend, Craig Faanes, whom I met at a Marauders’ game in 2010, their initial season in Bradenton.  Craig is a longtime heckler and fan of baseball.  We had much fun in 2010, sitting in the front row behind home plate and giving our all to the opposing pitchers, batters, and umpires.  Unfortunately, shortly after the start of the 2011 season Craig was heckling an opposing player who had used PEDs the previous season and had been banned for 50 games—the usual punishment.  Between innings, one of the Marauders coaches approached Craig, telling him to take it easy on the player.  This really irked Craig and me—Craig so much that he refused to attend any more games, even though he had purchased two season tickets.  It got under my skin so much that I called the coach out on his remarks the following day, telling him he was being paid to coach the players; not to police the fans.

Earlier this season, I was able to get some measure of revenge on Craig’s behalf.  The player to whom Craig had directed his comments was still in Class A ball and was in the starting lineup for the Palm Beach Cardinals, batting second.  In the first game, as the player was on deck, the leadoff batter struck out on a called third strike.  The player inquired, somewhat forcefully of the umpire, what he was doing and the ump told him he was tossing him out of the game.  I had never before seen a player get ejected from the game from the on deck circle.  The following night, when the player came to the plate, I heckled him asking if he had learned his lesson about keeping his mouth shut.  He proceeded to hit a bouncer to the shortstop.  In the bottom of the third, he booted an easy grounder hit to him as he was playing third base.  He then came to bat in the top of the fourth, so I let him have it again, this time about his error.  He proceeded to strike out, at which point I exercised my signature heckle, marching him back to the dugout with a “Left, right, left right…sit down sucker!”   He came to bat for a third time in the fifth inning and I was on him once again, this time about his cheating and the use of PEDs.  He proceeded to fly out.  After that at bat, the Cardinal’s manager took him out of the game.  Mission Accomplished!

Later on, the Lakeland Flying Tigers were in town and I did my usual heckling on the first night.  The following night, word got to me that there had been a complaint to the Florida State League office about my getting on their players, so I figured I’d play their game and sit silent for the game.  Several fans came up to me, wondering why I was so quite and I told them of what I had learned.  However, a few innings into the game I happened to be talking with the Pirates Director of Florida Operations who told the Flying Tigers manager was the one who had lodged the complaint about me.  That’s all I needed to hear.  I then got back to my seat and let them have it with both barrels, with most of them directed at the manager.  Several times he looked over at me and mouthed something I was unable to discern.  It was obvious I had gotten under his skin.  I even let him know I knew he had complained about me to the league office. Fortunately, at one point he went out to argue a call with the umpire which gave me the ideal opportunity to march him back to the dugout after he lost his argument.

I have gained somewhat of a modest cult following in my efforts to cheer on and support the Marauders.  If I miss a game (which is very seldom), folks will ask where I was.  I have had fans come up to me and remark I was fairly silent during the course of a game, even though I had made my presence known during the course of the game.  Heck, I recently had an older gentleman come up to me, asking for a picture of the two of us that could be sent to him.  I had a friend of mine take a photo, which I then sent to his email account.

While a lot of my heckling is directed toward opposing players, I consider myself an equal opportunity heckler, giving grief to the umpiring crew as well as to the Marauders manager.  Umpires, especially seemingly inept ones, can feel the sting of my barbs at any given moment.  Beyond the traditional “You’re as blind as a bat”, I have several stock umpire heckles, including:

·        C’mon blue, use your good eye;

·        Hey blue, is your glass eye fogging up?

·        Hey blue, why don’t you go back to T-ball?

·        Your strike zone has the consistency of diarrhea! and, my favorite:

·        We know you’re blind; we’ve seen your wife!

At the same time, if I feel the manager of the Marauders, Carlos Pena, is not doing his job I’ll call him out on it.  All too often this season, if a pitcher is being beaten to death, giving up walks and hits with no relief in sight, I have no problem in yelling over to the dugout that Carlos should go out to the mound to talk with the pitcher and give him an opportunity to settle down or even pull the pitcher from the game.  Unfortunately, too much emphasis is given to a pitcher’s pitch count, usually 80 pitches per game for starters and 30 for relievers.  To my mind, pitch counts be damned.  If a pitcher is in trouble, what good does it do to leave him in the game?  That is the most lethal way to destroy a man’s spirit.  Give him some help if he needs it, but if he can’t get anyone out, it has to adversely affect his psyche.  Granted, most pitchers are gamers and don’t want to give up.  Who can blame them?  But to leave them just for the sake of a pitch count makes absolutely no sense.  At one time I got on Carlos so bad for not pulling a pitcher that he looked over in my direction and told me to “Be quiet!”

But, it’s not only his handling of pitchers that gets under my skin.  A few weeks ago the leadoff batter hit a nubber between the pitcher’s mound and first base.  The opposing pitcher fielded the ball, but when he threw wildly down the right field foul line, the batter kept on going and ended up on second.  This presented the perfect opportunity to set up a run—have the next batter bunt the runner to third so that he could score on a fly ball.  Elementary baseball strategy, right?  Not in Carlos’ book.  He lets the second batter swing away, at which point he pops up to short.  The third batter strikes out and the fourth batter flies out, thus ending the inning.  No runs and the leadoff batter died on second.  As Carlos was jogging back to the dugout, I was irate and yelled him why didn’t he bunt the runner over to third with no outs.  He yelled back to me, asking me if I wanted his job, to which I replied an emphatic “YES!”

It is now the second half of the season and it appears as though things might be turning around.  Some of the former players were promoted to the Class AA Altoona Curve while replacements came from Low A West Virginia Power.  The team seems a bit more aggressive at the plate and on the bases and it is beginning to show.  They are in first place, instead of last.   This past Sunday, July 1^st, I took advantage of my being a season ticket holder and attended a doubleheader in Port Charlotte against the Rays’ minor league team, the Charlotte Stone Crabs.  Before the first game started, I poked my head into the dugout and said, “Never fear; the heckler is here”, which elicited a positive response from the team.  Although they lost the first game 8-0, the second game was quite different.  In the first inning the Marauders loaded the bases with none out.  They then pulled off a successful double steal.  The runner on first base took off toward second.  The catcher threw down to second, at which point the runner got into a rundown and the runner on third took off toward home, sliding in head first ahead of the throw.  The end result was that the Marauders had one run in and runners on second and third with no outs.  Now, that’s aggressive baseball!  They went on to win the game.  The following evening, they were back home and, as Carlos was jogging back to the dugout at the end of the first inning, I yelled out to him that I loved the double steal the team had pulled off the night before and gave him two thumbs up.  He acknowledged me with a smile.  I guess one could say Carlos and I have a love-hate relationship.

In the end, I love the game of baseball.  Heckling is simply a part of the fabric and history of the game.  Even though I never had the talent or ability to be a professional baseball player, I imagine I am making up for my inability in that regard by, in a sense, taking those who have the ability to task.  Part of my philosophy regarding heckling is that, if they can’t take it here, they surely can’t take it when they get to the big leagues.  Don’t get me wrong.  I really admire these young men who are able to chase their dream.  I was never able to and I want every man who steps onto a baseball field to realize their dream and make it to the major leagues.  Unfortunately, most of them won’t.  I have heard it estimated that only about three percent of minor leaguers ever make it to the big leagues.  I wish I could wave a magic wand and transform each of them into a major leaguer.  But the best I can do is wish each of them well in whatever endeavor they end up pursuing.