Stick to Sports: Sean Doolittle Edition

So the World Series Baseball Champion Washington Nationals are scheduled to visit the White House–conveniently located in Washington, DC–on Monday at 1:15pm. As many of you may have noticed, despite it not being a strictly sports story, the current inhabitant of the White House is one Donald J. Trump, noted big, wet baby, proud criminal, and orange colored, small-fingered, blob-shaped bankrupt.

Sean Doolittle, on the other hand, is none of those things. He is instead a relief pitcher for the Nationals baseball sports team and, near as I can tell, the first National to publicly decline participation in the White House visit. On Friday evening the Washington Post caught up with Doolittle who said, “There’s a lot of things, policies that I disagree with, but at the end of the day, it has more to do with the divisive rhetoric and the enabling of conspiracy theories and widening the divide in this country.”

Doolittle continued, “People say you should go because it’s about respecting the office of the president. And I think over the course of his time in office [Trump has] done a lot of things that maybe don’t respect the office.” No “maybe” about it my good man Sean! The office of the president is one of a great many things its current occupant does not respect, at all, in any way, ever. In fact, it’s much easier to list the things in life which he does respect: dictators; strongmen; Burger King, home of the Whopper; Ivanka’s tits; and that’s about it.

Doolittle also noted that he feels “very strongly” about Trump’s “issues on race relations,” mentioning the Central Park Five, the Fair Housing Act and Trump’s comments in the wake of a 2017 white nationalist rally in my adopted hometown of Charlottesville, Virginia. “I don’t want to hang out with somebody who talks like that,” he said. This is a reasonable standard by which to judge people! Perhaps, if you’re one of the good ones, you will not enjoy hanging out with a person who spews forth hate, lies, ignorance, and other assorted bad things whenever said person opens his or her anus-shaped or not-anus-shaped mouth. Yet we live in a world where that’s 60-some-odd million people’s idea of a good time. Sad!

Sean Doolittle is not one of these people. I learned that today. I knew very little about Sean Doolittle before today, but today I learned that I like Sean Doolittle very much. I also learned that Doolittle has a wife with two mothers, an autistic brother-in-law, and has done volunteer work for refugees. Also Doolittle is a great name, even a fantastic name. That I knew before today, and if it was my name they’d have to call me Dr. Doolittle which would be a trip, and accurate as hell to boot.

So what has Trump learned today? This Sean Doolittle fellow made Fox News, so Trump almost certainly learned that there’s a loser on the Nationals, a spy, a traitor, a Democrat named Doolittle who is right now working against his great purposes of being praised and feared constantly and yes-men’ed always. Did Trump learn about Doolittle’s wife with two mothers or his autistic brother-in-law or his work with refugees? Certainly not. That’s crap in the small print, several paragraphs down. Trump, great man that he is, is a headline man. Reading the whole article is for losers, same as extending empathy towards the disabled or systematically oppressed.

Trump, great man that he is, is not in the empathy business. He’s in the sticking to sports business. And if you need help keeping score at home–and who doesn’t in these trying times–it goes like this:

Going to the White House to give a temporary veneer of normalcy to the current monster within for the sake of respecting the office = sticking to sports.

Calling it like it is and declining the invitation to do so = not sticking to sports.

Just when you thought the baseball season was over, the sport continues on for yet another week, either stuck to or not.

3 Comments

  1. 45 is a person just like any other person. Refusing to meet with him and hang isn’t an insult to the office, it is a rational decision to avoid associating oneself with human filth. But, we ultimately have to remember, that 45 is a person just like any other person. There are lots of people out there just like him. And lots of people we should not hand the keys of power and wealth to. In other words, remember the people who support 45 and actively enable him. And make sure they do not have *your* support when it comes time to determine who is your representatives and leaders.

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