On this Super Tuesday I find myself upset that decisions such as the Oakland A’s 2008 lineup are not made in the sensible manner of the election system. Surely, a large group of educated and informed people – like A’s fans, or the general population – can do a competent job of completing a task as unimportant as electing a president or a task as vital as selecting a baseball lineup.
First you need two parties, such as The Sabermetric Party and The Old School Scout Party, which can publicly debate the merits of each player, offering spirited arguments about VORP, “he looks like a ballplayer when he runs,” ZIPS projections, and “he has that ‘giddyup’ on his fastball”. Then a third independent party can claim that neither the Sabermetrics nor the Old Schoolers are good for baseball, so the independent party’s ideas can be slandered in the media and widely ignored by the public.
Then the people vote. Or about half of them choose to, anyway. Donnie Murphy wins Alameda County, securing 23 delegates, while Bobby Crosby, boosted by an awesome new haircut and the official endorsement of Peter Gammons, secures the 28 delegates from Contra Costa County. Suddenly, Sonoma County’s mere 9 delegates are looming large. It’s a tight race into the evening, yet already at 7:00pm two TV stations are calling it for Crosby and the Sabermetric Party is complaining that Old Schoolers have been seen at several polling stations scaring wonks away from casting their ballots.
All I’m saying is that I want the chance to cast my one absentee vote for Nick Swisher only to have him traded before election day. Edwards/Huckabee in 2008, baby! Seriously, I think they’d make a great platoon at shortstop.
