Where is Casey Stengel when we need him? Wouldn't you have loved to have ol' Casey as governor instead of David A. Paterson? Wouldn't you have loved to have Casey in any state legislative capacity rather than these stumble bums who are the political equivalent of the 1962 Mets, a team that lost 120 games?
Sure, Casey was forgetful, but he virtually invented the platoon system in baseball. It would be wonderful if instead of these intellectually and ethically challenged legislators we could have Casey with his famous instincts pick out somebody to go out on the field and actually do something. Casey once looked down the bench for a pinch hitter and said to Johnny Mize, whose name he happened to remember, "Mize, go hit a homer." And he did. So if it were another one of these insane legislative stalemates, Casey could look out and say, "Jeter, clean this up," and Derek Jeter could cast a deciding vote. Summer dreams.
One of the more dismaying aspects of this political season, (when it was revealed that the New York state government wasn't even remotely Triple-A, but something below Rookie League,) was to watch some of our elected officials answering interviewers' questions on local television. The people in the midst of the legislative burlesque, the people whose names we have been reading in the newspapers, to hear them speak and realize, my god, these people represent us, these people are responsible for all those decisions, and all that money, and these people are morons.
Casey had been around baseball long enough to know the rules, and even in his dotage he could fill out a lineup card, he didn't have people bat out of position, he managed the game. And here we have Governor Paterson appointing Richard Ravitch lieutenant governor and a state supreme court judge issues a preliminary injunction blocking the appointment. Casey wouldn't have run anybody out there who wasn't cleared to play.
As Casey said, "Now there's three things you can do in a baseball game. You can win or you can lose or it can rain." In Albany they reinvented the rain delay. There's never been a group like them. You can look it up.