I was joking about the other day when I hinted that Chicagoans might pretend that White Sox pitcher Jake Peavy was JFK and stuff the ballot box – so to speak – in favor of getting him on the American League All-Star team.
But it seems that some people took such an idea seriously.
BECAUSE AMONG THE stunts being employed on the Internet this week to get more people to pick Peavy to be the final member of the team is a video message from none other than Gov. Pat Quinn.
Who apparently has seen how both President Barack Obama and the Daley family has been able to bolster their public credentials by rooting for the Sout’ Side team.
His video message proclaims himself to be a “die-hard” fan of the White Sox and of Peavy – which in-and-of itself shows you that something is off. Since the hard-core of White Sox fandom have been so appalled by Peavy in recent years that we’re still wondering if his performance this season is a fluke.
Will we seriously see a significant number of people picking Peavy, just because Pat Quinn tells us to?
THIS IS THE man whose approval ratings are so low that we have to wonder how he ever got elected in the first place (a mediocre opponent who repulsed Chicagoans is how, but that’s a topic for another day).
It just strikes me as laughable that anybody’s attempt to stuff a ballot box would include the image of Quinn. I’m wondering how many people will be so bored that they will disregard it.
Or will hear what Quinn has to say, and decide to pick somebody else just out of spite?
We’ll see for sure how all this turns out come Thursday, since this is the day that the “final all-star” is supposed to be announced. All those people being able to cast multiple votes on the Internet will not be able to do so after today.
WE’LL ALSO HAVE to see just how it works out to see that White Sox and St. Louis Cardinals fans are ganging up – with Sox fans being asked to pick Peavy and David Freese (the World Series hero last year) of the Cardinals to be the last member of the National League All-Star team.
All those Missouri and Southern Illinois baseball fans are being asked to reciprocate with a vote for Peavy.
Nonetheless, I’m not sure if that truly is enough to win something as superficial as this (which usually are the things we take the most seriously, sadly enough).
For even though Quinn tells us that Peavy has the most complete games in the American League and has held hitters to a .215 batting average this season, I wonder how many of those fans in Japan want to see their national sensation, Yu Darvish, pitch in the game.
DARVISH OF THE Texas Rangers (not the lawmen of old) also is among the ballplayers in line for the final spot on the American League roster – which will (hopefully) slap the National League all-stars silly when they play come Tuesday in Kansas City.
He will get that nationalistic vote. And his appearance on the team would boost Major League Baseball’s desires to gain more international fans. Peavy might well be standing in the way of progress!
Although as we prepare to find out just who gets to be on the All-Star Team, I must admit to having one question.
If we have the image of Peavy as John Kennedy – winning an election due to (ideologues desperately want to believe) stuffed ballot boxes from Chicago – then what does that make the Chicago Cubs?
ARE THEY THE equivalent of an unshaven Richard Nixon, looking deathly ill on national television?
That would certainly explain a lot about the quality of play they have shown this season!
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