'BLO IT RIGHT BY 'EM: Sports Benefit From Nov. Politics

After observing the festively democratic carnival ride that was the 2004 Presidential Election, I confidently believe that there is just one thing left to declare. No, it’s not a president (but don’t worry, that joke won’t get old). That’s right, enfranchised voter—the month of November will be an absolutely wonderful month for the world of sports, and it’s all thanks to politics.

Read my lips, Harvard University. Thanks to this past week, all the signs are there. Observing the election in the frenetic Boston area has illuminated a constellation of divine clues. And what’s more, you won’t even have to exercise any kind of civic duty in order to find out what’s coming. (Nor will you die at the hands of P. Diddy, apparently, if you decide not to exercise said duty.)

So, if an extra-inning game from the 2004 ALCS masquerading as an election wasn’t telling enough for you; if hypnotically inspecting the colors red and blue on the same screen as you watched Games 4 and 5 of Red Sox-Yankees wasn’t suitably prophetic; if being awake in the wee hours of Wednesday morning to watch white guys trying to defeat other white guys wasn’t good enough; here are a couple of reasons why autumn should be incredible for the sports universe.

1. The victory of President George W. Bush will officially destroy the predictive abilities of the Washington Redskins. Up until Tuesday, the 71-year-old streak of a Redskins game forecasting the outcome of the Presidential Election held true—if Washington won their final home game before the Election, the story went, then the incumbent party would win, and vice-versa. No longer. The Redskins lost 28-14 to the Green Bay Packers last Sunday.

John Kerry lost.

Thus, the 2-5 ’Skins can officially fade out of the public consciousness and people can stop pretending that they are in some way still relevant, whether it is symbolically, politically or in the NFL. This is a good thing, I’m pretty sure.

Sorry, Joe Gibbs.

Advantage: Sports.

2. In a related story, Washington’s precipitous decline in the world of amazing trends paves the way for one of my own long-standing theories, that the number of googley-eyed stares power forward Kurt Thomas shoots at people in the New York Knicks’ season-opener somehow determines the comptroller of New York City.

Sorry, New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr.

Advantage: Sports.

3. Republican Jim Bunning, a tall, right-handed man who reportedly confessed in the thick of a senatorial race, “I don’t watch the national news, and I don’t read the paper. I haven’t done that for the last six weeks,” was narrowly reelected senator of Kentucky. Horrible, right?

Nope, wrong.

Notable facts about him presented on his website’s biography (bunning.senate.gov) reveal something interesting by around the third paragraph. Bunning is, if you didn’t know, a Hall of Fame hurler, “the second pitcher in history…to record 1,000 strikeouts and 100 wins in both the National and American Leagues.” When he retired, he was also second to Walter Johnson on the all-time strikeout list.

Sorry, Kentucky senatorial challenger Daniel Mongiardo.

Advantage: Sports.

4. George W. Bush himself once served as part-owner and managing general partner of the Texas Rangers. Although under his tenure Sammy Sosa was traded to the Chicago Cubs and proceeded to become one of the best players of the 20th century, Bush was elected to the presidency again.

John Kerry, on the other hand, alleges to be a Red Sox fan, and once claimed that he was “30 yards away” from Bill Buckner during the infamous 1986 collapse at Shea Stadium in the World Series…and at a Boston banquet on the same night. Really, John? Actually, I guess that’s really somewhat believable. I’ve taken the Fung-Wah bus before.

Wait, what? The Fung-Wah bus wasn’t even invented in 1986?

Sorry, Democratic Party.

Advantage: Sports.

5. Sean “P. Diddy” Combs, the aforementioned spiritual leader of the dubiously influential “Vote or Die” campaign, was featured numerous times on the very same national news our boy Jim Bunning claims not to watch. Diddy has been rumored to want to buy at least a part of the New York Knicks organization, and is apparently a pretty huge sports fan. As of late, he has even been absurdly questioned about his own future political aspirations.

Well, absurd if Kentucky didn’t exist.

Sorry, Tupac Shakur.

Advantage: Sports.

Okay, so there you have it—five distinct, clear reasons why the sporting world should get better in the very, very near future, and you all have American politics, rap music and my omniscience to thank. I haven’t even touched upon the parallels between Bush and Kerry and the correlating prognostications for the annual November throw-down that is Harvard-Yale.

Of course, you might argue this was all a big waste. I didn’t even need to do this to show why November will be good for sports. I could have simply pointed to late-season college football, the return of the NBA, Major League Baseball off-season dealings, the meat of the NFL season or even the nationally ranked Harvard football team’s perfect record—the only one remaining in all of Division I-AA. And, you may also reasonably claim, Jim Bunning is in reality a very nice, upstanding, intelligent individual. And that I, on the other hand, am a hack.

Sorry, You.

—Staff writer Pablo S. Torre can be reached at torre@fas.harvard.edu. His column appears on alternate Fridays.