John McCain Imagines a Baseball Game

John McCain took in a Yankees game yesterday, well, more or less. He disappeared from the stands in the middle of the sixth, never to be seen again. The score was tied, but the photo opportunity had been won, and if McCain stays in the sun for more than an hour or so he turns into one of those Francis Bacon paintings of Pope Innocent X, a set of gnarled skeleton claws and an ashy howling skull, exploding.

And no one wants to see that.

It didn't really matter to McCain if he saw the end of the game, since his most cherished sports memories are all imaginary, anyway.

Here's McCain in one of his ghost-written autobiographies:

No one was ever more determined to be his own man than Ted Williams, or so I thought when I first saw him strike out at Griffith Stadium, then raise his head and spit from the plate towards the fans who booed him and the sportswriters who harassed him. That's how I remember the moment, anyway, the moment when Ted Williams became my hero. I saw him spit even if it didn't happen at that game, and the legend that is Ted Williams began to seep so far into my subconscious that in my memory I am physically present at some of its more colorful highlights... it sure looked as if he spat at them that day, and I was thrilled to witness it, even if the papers didn't write it up, even if my cousin Peter Andrews, who was sitting beside me wasn't sure he did.

There are a couple of really piquant things about this anecdote:

1) What's with right wing Vietnam veterans and imaginary offenses involving saliva? There's a whole pretty interesting book about it called The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam. At least McCain didn't imagine the Splendid Splinter hurling dog shit and calling him a baby killer.

2) What kind of damaged person goes to the park and fantasizes about his hero striking out? "Oh, boy! What a great day for a ballgame! I really hope someone on our side eats it and it drives him into a fit of impotent apoplectic rage!"

3) The obvious tension between author and editor. It's pretty clear that this spit vision is a cherished McCain story and he wants in the book, even when presented with evidence that it never happened.

Editor
Uh, Senator, the researchers checked, and it never happened.

Maverick
But I've been telling that story for over a hundred thousand years!

Editor
Well, uh... maybe... that makes it better! That's just the kind of guy you are! You love Ted Williams so much, you imagine him spitting on people!

Maverick
So it stays?

Editor
Your subconscious memory is good enough for me!

Maverick
Thanks, cunt!

--

The night before Sunday's game, McCain was talking baseball on a Straight Talk helicopter ride from a Hamptons fundraiser, and, of course, by baseball, we mean Ted Williams.

Not only was Williams a great player, but he also served stints as a Marine Corps pilot during World War II and the Korean War, Mr. McCain said, thereby embodying the model of patriotic service and sacrifice that Mr. McCain preaches on the campaign trail.

And oh yes, there was one other thing: Williams' prickly independence and maverick streak, which sometimes soured his relations with fans, management and sportswriters. "I always liked that," Mr. McCain said with a grin.

We don't know if McCain retold the spitting story, but I'm guessing he did.

--

Speaking of rictus skulls, John McCain's date for the Yankees game was the great comic disaster of the Republican primaries, Rudy Giuliani.

Rudy took the requisite questions about he and McCain forming and ticket, and/or a cancer cluster, and Giuliani used the occasion to take a swipe at Barack Obama's tour of Afghanistan and Iraq.

The fact that Barack Obama is now making his first tour, in essence, of the world is an indication that John McCain is the man with the experience. John doesn't have to go for the first or second time to these places. He has been going there for 20-30 years. He knows the world. He understands the world.

Rudy Giuliani has never been to Iraq.

--

In 2000, after a personal meeting with John McCain, Ted Williams endorsed George W. Bush.

Comments

[billwetzel]

I think he actually saw Ted Williams spit on the Iraq-Pakistan border one time. Right before he traveled to Czechoslovakia.

[brijit]

That's our Johnny Mac, a class act all the way.

[soithoni]

"I invented baseball, you know." - John McCain

[dtrain51]

Did anyone else see MSNBC this morning, they had Michael Regan on, this dude has got to be nuts or MSNBC is really needing some rating,after saying some people should be killed on his radio show, he said the pope called him and wanted to know why is Sen. Obama is getting more air time than him(the pope), this guy is to much.

[SouthpawSass]

roflmao...


What is it with men and spitting, anyway? I just don't get why some seem to have an abundance of mucous they feel the need to share. And that goes along with scratching private parts and the capacity to use a strangers bathroom to move their bowels...

[Humeaudenparker]

How about the way McCain pandered to the sports fans in Pittsburgh by changing out the Green Bay Packer players for Steelers in his famous *story* about how he courageoulsy named them as his crew mates to his Viet Cong captors?

By the way, Williams is almost unanimously remembered as a world class jerk, but I guess that means Maverick to McCain. (It seems that only Tony Gwynn, one of the nicest guys in the world, was able to tolerate Williams.) One year Williams missed getting the MVP by one point because a hometown writer left Williams entirely off the ballot.

Real baseball fans will know what that means. Would John McCain?

[escobar]

Bacon was a bum.
Ireland is free of the English today and doing much better without those bloody Royal tyrants.

[tombollocks]

Thank you, oh, thank you for referencing Francis Bacon! You don't see that every day! Ahhhh, Nothing like a Screaming Pope or side of beef!

The rest of the article was excellent as well.

[BhunduBoy]

"John McCain Imagines a Baseball Game" Yes. Where Palestinians are not a team, but the ball to bat.

[Ellis Weiner - Huffpost Blogger]

Got that, parents (and coaches!) of Little Leaguers? Next time your son or daughter strikes out and gets guff--from the other players, their parents, heck, from anybody--teach 'em to spit at their hecklers.

And once they learn it, don't sit back. Teach the other kids, too. I want to see an entire team of young, proto-Ted Wiliamses, spitting and hawking and sticking their tongues out at their opponents. Talk about sportsmanship. Talk about class.

(And did Rudy back W? Who had famously never been to Yurp?)

[SouthpawSass]

Heck, why wait for Little League - start 'em with tee ball. By the time they get to Little League, they'll have gobs of gelatinous spit spewing from their mouths with a precision that would make McCain proud...

[Dajo]

Ellis,Great comment!
I am a Yankee fan and was personally glad to see that McCain once again exposed his true colors. He left after 6 innings. A real Yankee fan doesn't generally leave when the game is tied.
Based upon the way McCain treats his Wife and his temper he has more in common with Ted Williams who is a pathetic excuse for a human much less a Yankee.

[JennyJay]

What a relief - now McCain's "manly" image is safe for awhile. . . Anybody who loves baseball
(even only 6 innings) has to be a terrific person. . . . Right? . . . Right? . . . Right?
Is anybody listening?

[LiarLiarIraqsOnFire]

Sorry, what was that you were saying? I was watching Sen. Obama's trip through the Middle East on CNN International and wasn't paying attention.

[Fez]

Maybe McCain was confused by Ted Williams' nickname, "The Splendid Splinter" and thought he was being called "The Splendid Spitter." In the immortal words of Roseanne Roseannadanna, "Never mind!" I have a feeling we'll be seeing more imagined events from McCain that never occurred. Maybe he can remind us that he was a hot-shot Navy pilot who crashed 5 aircraft, a record unequalled to this day. Or how he finished 5th from the bottom of his class at Annapolis. Or how he drank 5 fifths each week when he was Mr. Party Hearty, Top Gun, Wife Deserter-in-Chief.

[Pyfagorus]

"In the immortal words of Roseanne Roseannadanna..."

Wrong Gilda character. "Never mind!" was Emily Litella.

[rmreddicks]

Anybody know how many planes Ted Williams crashed?

[crablover]

McCain: "I knew Ty Cobb, and he was a wonderful human being."

[crablover]

Breaking News!
McCain attends Yankees game! Yankee Stadium to be torn down at season's end!

Great blog, Chris.