Tonight sports fans across the nation will tune in to the Midsummer Classic as baseball's best battle it out for home field advantage in the World Series (a sketchy incentive). The NL hasn't won in forever but have managed to produce what looks to be a team capable of winning this thing for the first time in twelve years. Regardless of all of that, this night promises to be interesting for a very different reason: The implications of the first pitch, to be thrown by our 44th President, Barack Obama. These things have always fascinated me. Where will they throw from? How good is their arm? Will it be a strike?
I was never a fan of Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, but in the 2001 World Series, in the aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Center, he delivered what I still consider to be one of the coolest moments to ever grace a baseball diamond. With a secret service agent disguised as an umpire, a heavy Kevlar vest protecting his chest, in the wake of the greatest terrorist attack of our generation, W. strolled out to the rubber, and from the full 60 ft. 6 inches delivered a perfect strike. Now St. Louis is no New York, the all-star game is no World Series, the recession is no 9/11 (in terms of impact and emotion), but Obama's toss means something, whether we want to admit it or not. Tonight the man that represents our entire nation will partake in the most American of traditions. Will he do old W. one better? Only time will tell.
I was never a fan of Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, but in the 2001 World Series, in the aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Center, he delivered what I still consider to be one of the coolest moments to ever grace a baseball diamond. With a secret service agent disguised as an umpire, a heavy Kevlar vest protecting his chest, in the wake of the greatest terrorist attack of our generation, W. strolled out to the rubber, and from the full 60 ft. 6 inches delivered a perfect strike. Now St. Louis is no New York, the all-star game is no World Series, the recession is no 9/11 (in terms of impact and emotion), but Obama's toss means something, whether we want to admit it or not. Tonight the man that represents our entire nation will partake in the most American of traditions. Will he do old W. one better? Only time will tell.
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