Half Past Noon

I haven’t found much to congratulate The National Review about in recent years. Now I have. In honor of baseball’s opening day, NRO assembled a group of 30 distinguished writers and policy wonks (one for each MLB team) to explain their love for their hometown team. This is American localism at its best.

It’s opening day. My bright spot in all the inauguration fuss.

I breathe a sigh of relief: Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich is a Cubs fan, not a Sox fan. I knew this in my heart, but I am glad to find yet another way to distance myself from the Dark Side of Chicago.

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them,
    for I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps
    luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true
     I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the
     faces of women and children I have seen the marks
     of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer
     at this my city, and I give them back the sneer and
     say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so
     proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job,
     here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the
     little soft cities;

Thank you, Chris, for reminding me of Sandburg’s brilliance.

After a series of old-school inside-the-beltway cabinet picks, Obama finally delivers on his promise for “change we can believe in.”

There’s always a media pecking order at a presidential news conference, but on Monday, aides to President-elect Barack Obama introduced a new twist to the seating chart.

Reporters were assigned seats in one of two sections, one to Obama’s left, designated the “Cubs” section, and the other to his right, designated ” White Sox.” Team assignments appeared to be arbitrary.

Obama is a die-hard White Sox fan, but when it came time to take questions, he didn’t favor reporters on that side. Instead, his seemingly random selections were pre-determined by aides.

The election’s impact on the world of sports. Better chance for a Chicago Olympics? Presidential order to implode Wrigley Field? Choice quote:

In August, Obama was asked who he would root for in a Cubs-White Sox World Series. This was his answer: “Oh, that’s easy. White Sox. I’m not one of these fair-weather fans. You go to Wrigley Field, you have a beer; beautiful people up there. People aren’t watching the game. It’s not serious. White Sox, that’s baseball. South Side.”

NOOOOOOOO! Obama is a Sox fan. Shoot. And he’s a “principled” fan, at that. Darn it all.

Compare that admittedly admirable stance to the behavior of Sarah Palin. Both Obama and Palin pander to local sports fans. But there’s something repugnant to this baseball fanatic about the way that Palin does it. Geck. Check it out for yourself (skip to 0:45):

Thank goodness political loyalties are not determined by sports.