And they say WE'RE petty: Republicans withdraw from congressional softball

[Craig3410]

http://dccc.org/stakeholder/archives/004626.html

http://online.wsj.com/google_login.html?url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB114584256978033769.html%3Fmod%3Dgooglenews_wsj (paid registration site)

So, for 35+ years, Congress has had a relaxed, bipartisan gallery for the congressional staff to have fun, until now. Congressional Republicans withdrew and formed a splinter league:

<i>Amid all the partisan rancor of congressional politics, the softball league has for 37 years been a rare case of bipartisan civility, an opportunity for Democratic and Republican aides to sneak out of work a bit early and take the field in the name of the lawmaker, committee or federal agency they work for.

During the off-season, a group of Republican teams seceded from the league after accusing its Democratic commissioner, Gary Caruso, of running a socialist year-end playoff system that gives below-average teams an unfair chance to win the championship.

The league "is all about Softball Welfare -- aiding the weak by punishing the strong," the pitcher of one Republican team told Mr. Caruso in an email. "The commissioner has a long-standing policy of punishing success and rewarding failure. He's a Democrat. Waddya' expect?" read another email, from Gary Mahmoud, the coach of BoehnerLand, a team from the office of Republican Majority Leader John Boehner.

The softball coup is a "reflection of how partisan and Republican this town has really become since Republicans took control," responds Mr. Caruso, a longtime Democratic aide who worked for congressmen in the 1980s and '90s. "Republicans come here and want to bash your head in. And if they don't get their way, they pick up the ball and go home." </i>

On edit; BoehnerLand? I thought the gay bar by the airport took that one. :rofl:

[wicket]

1. They are taking their ball and going home

Pathetic :nopity:

[izzybeans]

2. This, sadly, sounds like something that actually would happen.

[readmoreoften]

3. This is an Onion article, right?

Please tell me it's not real.

[Craig3410]

4. Forgot the link.

But yes, it's real.

[ramapo]

5. This can't be real

That'd be too much

[Craig3410]

6. The link I got it from refrenced the WSJ,

but it's a paid reg site.

I'll add it anyway; hold on.

[Ian David]

7. It's not just a game...

Ralph Reed and Jack Abramoff have a lot of money riding on those games.

[TAPat]

9. Bwahaha!

:rofl:

[Caution]

8. After so many years of softballs lobbed by the media

You would think they would be able to absolutely kill this league.

[noonwitch]

10. What are they, 5 years old?

Unbelieveably childish.

[bpj1962]

11. This is real

let me give you some back round on this situation. First of all I play in this league and second of all I am also on the rules committee because I play for the team that the commissioner Gary Caruso manages. Prior to the split of the league there were over 200 teams that play recreational softball in the congressional softball league. Schedules are set by each team and the scores were posted on the web site. At the end of every season there is a 64 team single elimination tournament. Gary did not pick the teams that could be in the tournament he accepted teams on a first come first serve basis. Since there were no umpires and it was very rare for teams to play the same opponent you could not use a normal seeding process such as the NCAA tournament does. What the commissioner did was use a seeding formula that was provided to him by ASA which is one of the 2 governing bodies in amateur softball. THe seeding simply paired teams with the same records together in the various brackets. This made it fair and since there are no "power rankings", it was and is the only fair way to do it.

What the manager of both Haserts team and Boehners team want is that the team with the most wins plays the team with the least amount of wins. Basically they would play bad teams and build their record and then expect a number 1 seed. They want to win without playing good teams and they want the rules their own way. They want their cake and they want to eat it too.

Gary Caruso has run this league for years and for the past ten years he has done it all himself. Prior to 9-11 we played the tournament at either Andrews or Bolling air force base. This allowed the league to get the tournament done in two weeks during the week. It also allowed the teams to play under the lights which was a treat for many of the teams. The tournament also had umpires. Since 9-11 the league has been at the mercy of what ever county would allow us to use their field and we could only use them on a Saturday during the day. This lengthened the time of tournament and it took the night games away. At no point after 9-11 did anyone for Hasterts office ever talk to the commissioner about seeing what strings they could pull to get the tournament back at either Andrews or Bolling.

Sorry for the rant it just pisses me off when I see these people tell lies and have never lifted a finger to help with the league. Good riddance to them.

[Horse with no Name]

14. Why doesn't that surprise me?

The stronger Republicans ONLY want to play the weaker teams so that they can win. They don't want to play fair ON or OFF the field.
So typical.

[tabasco]

12. Run away little crybabies! Run away!

These are the people running our country right now.

Truly frightening.

[foreverdem]

13. This is very real

Sam Seder discussed this on Majority Report last night and referenced the article. This is for real.