It’s true. The end of summer has arrived! If the cooling temperatures and changing leaf colors didn’t cue you in, October baseball must have! That’s right – It’s World Series time! The Houston Astros are battling the Washington Nationals. As of Tuesday evening, the series is 3 games Houston to 2 games Nationals. If anyone has been paying attention to this series (and I’m sure there are many), then I don’t blame you if you now want the Astros to win.
There are a few reasons why I hope that the Astros can pull this off. The first is that they lost the first two games in their own stadium, probably star struck and awed at the fact that they had made it that far. You see, they played in the World Series only twice before in the entire time they have been in existence, once in 2005 and in 2017. They won the World Series in 2017. Since their two losses at home, the Astros have pulled off wins in each game since then, making the count three game to two out of a best of seven game series. Another reason I would like to see Houston win is that the fans at the Washington Nationals stadium was completely disrespectful to the President of the United States during game 5. They booed and chanted “lock him up”, they posed veterans with signs reading ‘Trump for Impeachment’ behind home plate. But what takes the cake is that the version of ‘Take me Out to the Ballgame’ featuring impeachment phrases that they played in the Washington stadium. Even though the Nationals owner and facility managers say that they wanted Trump to attend while protecting first amendment rights, they completely missed the mark for me.
I am upset with this, just as I was upset with NFL player kneeling during the National Anthem at professional football games. I don’t believe it to be a proper forum for these politically motivated acts of hatred or defiance, whatever you want to call them. Did those same NFL players take knee during any untelevised game or event they went to that played the national anthem, perhaps one of their kid’s school plays or games? I’m going to guess no.
A lot of people enjoy watching televised sporting events. It takes their mind away from stresses of the day, connects them to other fans, and provides some time away from the news and political nonsense that is crammed down our throats all day long. My husband and I got rid of our NFL package when the players started doing this, in addition to no longer attending NFL games while this was happening.
So now the political crap has seeped its way into our favorite sport, baseball. Dam it! When Donald Trump chose to watch the Washington Nationals game last night in their stadium, he was met with clear feedback. The man was trying to support the local professional team, which had never been to the World Series before! I get that a high-level political figure is going to hear jeers and feedback whenever he goes, but the version of ‘Take me Out to the Ballgame’ that the home stadium aired on their big screen and the stadium sang was completely uncalled for! How dare Washington take it upon themselves to control what I’m watching, which I thought was just a game 5 World Series battle. They were completely disrespectful to the highest office in our country. As usual, Washington is completely out of touch with what the rest of the country wants. In this case, we just want to watch some October baseball between the two best teams in the game! I don’t need your political opinions, which mean nothing to me! Let me just unwind with the World Series; keep politics out of it!
None of this happened while the games were held in Houston. This makes me think that the farther you are from Washington, the better!
Go Astros!