Congressional baseball at RFK: GOP, 19; Dems (Health care now!), 10

WP:
A GOP Landslide (at RFK, No Less)
Congressional Baseball Game Is All for a Good Cause, Namely Winning

By Vanessa de la Torre
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 24, 2005; Page C12

....If there has been some sort of announcement over the loudspeakers during the 44th annual congressional baseball game that the whole thing is for a good cause -- that a literacy council and the Boys and Girls Club would benefit -- then nobody can hear it in partisanland. Blue-hearted Dems in the stands are too busy booing Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) as he steps to the plate. Or Republicans -- man, woman and child -- are jeering the ump when the Dems get a close call at first base, even though the GOP was up by six runs.

In hardball, the sweetest victory is one of utter demolition. Anyone who emphasizes the all-in-fun "charity" in this event is either from PR or last year's losing squad (GOP 14, Dems 7). This game is no company softball folly: MVP plaques hang in the House gymnasium. The losers (historically members of the House minority) do not get a trophy. Instead they must shuffle about the Hill, absorbing the knowledge that not only has America dissed them, but worse, they can't even field a grounder....

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Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, the Republican team's deputy manager...brags that Republicans have dominated the past decade, with eight wins. They have younger players and are "for some reason" more athletic. Still, he notes, there's "not anyone out here who can start on a good high school team."

Seems like everyone has tendinitis and/or surgical scarring. One Republican staffer who is not even on the roster has a leaking, seven-pound bag of ice on his left elbow after an hour of shagging foul balls. And don't get manager Rep. Mike Oxley (R-Ohio) started: On the opening play of the 1994 congressional game, he hit a shot to the pitcher, hustled to first and got beaned on the wrist. Oxley writhed on the field in agony; Democrats in the stands chanted: "Health care now! Health care now!"...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/24/AR2005062400020.html?sub=AR