Wednesday, April 12, 2006
 when Vice President Dick Cheney threw out the first pitch right before the Washington Nationals home opener he was roundly and loudly booed.
if you watch the video you will see that the outraged increased when he wusses out and throws the ball from in front of the mound instead of from the actual rubber.
i know the man has heart problems, and is old, but the distance from the rubber and the plate is 60 feet, six inches. if you cannot throw a baseball 60 feet six inches you shouldn't waddle out to the middle of the field.
often times when women throw out the first pitch they do it from the first row of the stands to an awaiting catcher 30-40 feet away.
ive seen senior citizens take the mound and throw the ball over the plate.
perhaps if the Vice President's bullet-proof vest is on too tight he should loosen it, or better yet, load a baseball into a specially designed rifle and shoot it.
for such a macho man, for such a tough talker, for someone so interested in showing whose boss in the world, he should have known that throwing the first pitch from in front of the mound is like riding a bicycle as an adult with training wheels. there is no way to look cool, there is no way to pull it off, and all you will incur is wrath pity and ultimately insult.
is no one listening to karl rove over there? surely he would have advised against such nonsense.
the rules of throwing the first pitch are simple: take the rubber, wave at the fans, dont forget to wave at the fans behind you in the bleachers, look in to the catcher, shake off a sign, wind up like either Luis Tiant or Fernando Venzuela, and aim high so as to get the ball over the plate without bouncing it.
children know this.
and when you get the ball back from the catcher and walk off the field either hand the ball over to a young child, or toss it behind your back to a hottie in the front row.
next week, mr vice president, i will show you how to pull out of a quagmire without spending another trillion dollars that you dont have.
in the Scratch My Back & I'll Scratch Yours dept: all the people who write a sentence or two in their blog about The Official Coachella Blog being on Buzznet (and then link to it) will in turn get a link to their blog on the busblog either at the end of one of my upcoming posts, or if its a really sweet sloppy kiss, over on the left hand side as "tony's specials".
just let me know you did it in either the comments or via email. busblog at gmail
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