Obama

Last night I had a dream that President Obama stopped by my house while on a tour to visit average American households.  When he was about to leave I asked him if it would be alright if I grabbed my camera so that we could take some pictures.  As I was looking for my camera I realized that the vertical striped sweats I was wearing didn't exactly match my horizontal striped sweater.  I dug through my clothes but couldn't find anything to wear which made me wake up feeling very frustrated and stressed.

Several months ago a blown call by an umpire with two outs in the ninth inning prevented a major league pitcher from throwing a perfect game.  At the time, my brother and I had been involved in some pretty ridiculous political discusssions.  I wrote the following article to send to him after the blown call:

Umpire Admits to Presidential Influence


DETRIOT (AP) – In a stunning development, umpire Jim Joyce has admitted President Obama influenced his controversial call in the final inning of Armando Galarraga’s attempt at a perfect game. With two outs and the Detroit Tigers leading the Cleveland Indians 3-0, Galarraga needed one out to record only the 21st perfect game in Major League History. Jason Donald hit a ground ball to Miguel Cabrera, whose throw to a covering Galarraga beat Donald by a half a step. However, Joyce signaled safe, crushing Galarraga’s dreams of perfection.

“I couldn’t bear to see the look of despair in the eyes of those men, who had all competed so valiantly, yet were unable to achieve their dreams,” said Joyce in a post game interview. “It just didn’t seem fair to watch one man enjoy such success, while so many had none" continued the umpire. I thought to myself, “What would President Obama do in this situation? The answer was crystal clear: Baseball should be enjoyed by everyone, not just by one man or one team.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid praised the Umpire, “My hope is that someday every American will stand up and do the right thing, like Mr. Joyce. This is a man who, seeing inequality in the world, took it upon himself to level the playing field and give another man his unalienable right to be happy. I commend Mr. Joyce on his bravery and challenge men and women of every industry to take something from someone who, through hard work and sacrifice, has achieved so much, and distribute it to someone who maybe didn’t practice quite so hard.”

Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, took a more direct approach. “What we saw in Mr. Galarraga is everything that is wrong in America today. How can one man be so overtaken with greed that he fails to see the consequences of his selfish actions on his fellow man? I applaud Mr. Joyce and call on every American to follow his lead. After all, it’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game.”

For the first time in his term, President Obama reserved comment. “It would be unfair for me to pass judgment on the events of last night’s game, due to the fact that I throw like a girl.”