Herald-Sun

--Imagine that you were asked to throw out the first pitch at a World Series game with thousands of people looking on at Yankee Stadium and millions more watching at home on television. How tough do you think it would be to toss the ball to home plate? Throw a strike, even?

Now, imagine that you're the president of the United States, with all the pressures that go with being the world’s alpha male. Then could you appear in front of millions of people to throw out the first pitch at a World Series game? Never mind that the game is in New York City, where people are still digging out from the Sept. 11 terrorist attack that destroyed the World Trade Center? Could you throw a strike?

President Bush did. And even his most vociferous enemies should give Bush proper respect for stepping onto the mound Tuesday night to open the third game of the World Series. Bush threw what most baseball analysts called a perfect pitch to open the game between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the New York Yankees. The Yankees won after losing the first two games in Phoenix.

If Bush, a baseball fan who once owned the Texas Rangers, was feeling any pressure Tuesday night, he didn’t show it. Bush had to know that the pitch, and his presence, symbolized more than the start of a World Series game. It was an act of raw defiance against terrorist threats to America.

For showing up at Yankee Stadium and for throwing a perfect pitch, George W. Bush earns our beloved Durham Grit Award with Chewing Tobacco Device. Give that feller a chaw, son.

-- Anonymous, November 03, 2001

Answers

I have to agree that our president is showing a lot of grit and I take my cowboy hat off to him.

-- Anonymous, November 03, 2001

A hell of a lot better than his Dad. As I'm sure you will recall, Ed Anger, universally respected columnist for the Weekly World News, worried that Bush Senior's sissy pitch in a similar situation might incline American boys toward homosexuality.

-- Anonymous, November 03, 2001