The Phillies are casting a shadow over the Supreme Court

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In early 2006, I opposed President Bush’s nomination of Samuel Alito Jr. to the Supreme Court for a very good, legitimate and salient reason completely unrelated to his judicial philosophy, of which I knew little.

I realized Alito could become a serious national liability through the ensuing decades because I saw a photograph of him dressed in a Phillies uniform from one of those fantasy baseball camps grown human males sometimes attend.

Not only did this send the recurring spinal chill I get whenever I think of grown human males attending these baseball fantasy camps, dressing in major-league locker rooms, wearing their favorite major-league uniform, pretending to be major-leaguers and cavorting with crotchety former major-leaguers in hotel cocktail bars, but there came an added shudder.

This esteemed jurist hadn’t just attended a fantasy camp; he had attended a Phillies fantasy camp.

That’s right: President Bush, a knowledgeable baseball man, somehow overlooked that in putting someone with a lifelong adoration of the Phillies on the highest court, he gave supreme power to someone who figured to be understandably nasty, after decades of mistreatment from baseball fates, with decades of mistreatment surely still to come.

But then, in 2008, there came hope. The Phillies looked unmistakably bound for a second title in 124 years. They lurked literally innings from mirth.

So let’s just say it would be a very good idea if the rainy fiasco of Monday night did not tilt this thing in favor of Tampa Bay. Let’s just hope the Phillies proceed from here and go ahead and win. It’s nothing against the beautiful Rays. It’s Country First.

-- Chuck Culpepper