It was a moment of pure relief when I heard Donald Trump was not going to throw out the first pitch at the Washington Nationals’ home opener last Monday. I’m sure he had more important things to do and wasn’t in the mood for being vociferously booed by a capacity crowd—or calculating for his current approval rating, at least 27,783 fans. Still, there was nothing about the sight of him standing on a mound in the center of a lush green ball field that felt natural to me. Worse, it didn’t even feel appropriate.
Sure, I was shocked and devastated along with 57% of the nation (Michael Moore notwithstanding) when our country was overrun by a cabal of lying miscreants starting in early November, but one of the more depressing things for me was the realization that after having this self-absorbed orange buffoon swallow the news cycle for a year and a half, he wasn’t going away anytime soon. The election happened just days after the Chicago Cubs won their first World Series in 108 years, and the old joke about the Apocalypse happening if the Cubs ever won suddenly wasn’t funny anymore.
This past winter has seen nothing but filthy rivers of cold Trumpian slush pour out of our computers, phones and television screens, and sweet-smelling baseball 2017 couldn’t get here fast enough. When a friend asked me recently if I was going to take Opening Day off again to watch a ton of games, my reply was “I need to do that this year more than ever.”
Baseball’s past has long mirrored America’s growth, particularly in the area of race relations, but the game itself has never strayed out of its wonderfully pastoral, protective bubble, a harmonious retreat for both lovers of athletic skill, history and bottomless statistics. For the entire week after 9/11 happened, reading baseball books was the one place I could go to escape from the overwhelming shock and sadness, and the magnificent D-Backs/Yankees World Series a month later allowed the rest of the country to share this needed escape on a massive scale.
This year, two out of the three games on Sunday’s Opening Day were fabulous, as were a host of them on Monday. If Trump had soiled Nationals Park with his presence, all of the news and sports media focus would have been on him, smashing our porcelain dome, clogging baseball Twitter feeds, and tarnishing what proved to be another exceptional first Monday in April, which in my view needs to be made a National Holiday.
Naturally, I wish our so-called President would just go away, but until he does, I hope he continues to avoid Opening Days. I don’t want him within sixty feet and six inches of the most timeless, perfectly designed, and peaceful game on the planet.