GAG ME WITH A POLITICAL SPOON

I try to avoid anything even remotely political on Small Ball, but I'm streaming the Nationals/Pirates game at RFK and one of the Pittsburgh hosts is interviewing some self-important elected official from Congress (Congressman Tim Murphy). He doesn't even try to pretend that the price for government funding isn't government intrusion. So much for the magnanimity of the elected body: "Hey, we spend taxpayer dollars in your ballparks, so we can say and do anything we want to regarding steroids and other things that are none of our business."

Wait a minute? Did our august congressman just say that Congress spends something like $20 billion per year on baseball (or was it sports in general)? Um, did a large crack rock just fall on my head? Can this be true? Hold on, let me get my lovely little pocket Constitution of the United States of America so I can thumb to the article that authorizes the government to have anything to do with commercial sports. Oh, there it is—on the page that my dog received in a transmission beam from Universe X.

[Update] I just wrote to super-villain Rick Santorum, Senator for Pennsylvania, to chide him for coming on not long after Murphy and telling watchers of broadcast television that a dog once pissed in his lap. Aside from the fact that Santorum is at the center of bad oppressive government, he came this close to ruining my fabulous baseball-watching experience. Erik, if I disappear, it's because I gave Santorum no quarter in my email to him. Who the hell does he think he is? Fucker.