Going to the Game to See the Umpire

I've been sporadically following NPR's coverage of the John Roberts confirmation hearing. Listening to the proceedings has been fascinating and exhausting. Fascinating because it's the first time I ever paid any attention to a Supreme Court nomination. Exhausting because there is only so much political rhetoric and legalese that I can handle before my brain screams for sanity. As I listened to yesterday's witness testimonies for and against the nominee, my imagination grew bored and wandered into this scene…

Seventeen senators, wearing baseball uniforms, sit on leather chairs placed in the dugouts of Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium in the District of Columbia. John Roberts, wearing judicial robes, a chest protector and a facemask, sits behind home plate. The media huddles on the infield grass, cameras poised, ready to capture every sound bite, every furrowed brow and every drooping eyelid. With the exception of the beer-bellied man banging thunder sticks with the words stare decisis on them, three bloggers sitting in the outfield bleachers blogging about the hearings, two bloggers aggregating everything the bloggers blog, two journalists reporting on the bloggers and the one journalist blogging about the journalists' coverage of the bloggers, the stadium is empty.

After many hours of unsuccessful attempts to extract answers or opinions, beyond generalities, from the nominee, the committee's final hopes rest with its eighteenth member, Joseph Biden, the senator from Delaware. With most of his thirty minutes on the mound spent, Biden makes one last assault on the mystery man known as John Roberts.

Biden: I'm sure you're not going to answer this, Ump, but I'm going to try anyway. Looking back at the pitch that Randy Johnson threw over the head of John Kruk in the 1993 All-Star Game, would you agree that it was a ball?
Roberts: Yes.
Biden: Yes? Wait. You answered a question. I'm confused. Can you elaborate?
Roberts: Yes.
Biden: Uh, then please elaborate.
Roberts: Yes, I agree that what he pitched was a ball.
Biden: Let me rephrase. Was that particular pitch in or out of the strike zone, as you understand it, in a physical sense?
Roberts: Well, the umpire in that instance declared it out of the strike zone. I believe most umpires would say it was not a strike and as the rulebook defines the strike zone, so would I.
Biden: That was rather vague, but since I used most of my questioning time to eloquently articulate the importance of clean helmets, let us move on. How do you feel about the pitch Johnson threw?
Roberts: I feel that it wasn't in the strike zone.
Biden: I get that, Ump, but how do you feel about that pitch, not as an umpire, not based on any rulebook, but as a shortstop, a right-handed hitter, somebody named John?
Roberts: I don't see how that is rele-
Biden: You're not answering the question.
Arlen Specter: (from the top step of the home dugout) Now, come on, Joe, let him finish!
Biden: Fine. Go on. Go on and continue not to answer.
Roberts: -vant.
Biden: Okay, let me ask it this way, with your permission. What is your view, based on "the rules", of the strike zone if John Kruk were my father?
Roberts: Well, I can't speak to that specific plate appearance.
Biden: Of course you can't. You dirty rotten -
Specter: Thank you, Senator Biden. You are out of time.

I'll cut it off there since my imagination continued incoherently into confirmation hearing oblivion. All I know is that with another Bush nominee on the way, I can't wait to see the excitement and heat that one generates.