The Modern Romantic

Here we see Dick Cheney throwing the first pitch of the Washington Nationals season. It hit the dirt in front of the home plate (which I'm told is "not good"), but that's not what struck me about the photo. See, the veep got booed (by some accounts, very loudly) and you can see the hurt on his face. I remember baseball as a high pressure, all-eyes-watching-you, hellfest that made my throat dusty and my eyes filled with tears and that's sorta how Dicky looks here. It almost makes me feel bad for the Vice-Liar. Seriously; unlike a lot of vice-presidential duties, Cheney didn't have to do this one. In fact, only Thomas Marshall in 1917 and again in 1920, Charles Dawes in 1926, John Garner in 1939, Henry Wallace in 1942 and 1944, and Richard Nixon in 1959* have done it. You never saw Bush I or Gore pitching, nosiree, so we have to presume Cheney wanted to throw the pitch, that the guy was excited to go out and, for a moment, play the role of major league pitcher, which behind Superman, is the most all-American apple-pie-hero-role you can be. He could have just sat in the stands and thrown the ball to the field. He could have not attended at all. Instead, he got all dolled up in a Nationals jacket and went out to the pitchers mound and the crowd jeered at him. Make no doubt about it, if I were in the stands, I'd be booing too. He disgraces the Nationals by wearing their jacket and disgraces the game by participating in it, but it must weigh heavy on his marbled heart to sense that history and his country, are going to remember him as anything but a hero.