The oven is not for buns. Allegations and letters are piled up against the country, due to the Haitian issue, and countless reforms of all kinds in a Congress tempted by that of ‘like sugar cane for the mill’, in addition to being full of late and/or invisible sworn declarations of assets, all waiting for the regulatory sanctions for the case. In this tidal wave of disparate things, perhaps it is prudent to philosophize a little, throw away the blow and avoid, thus, anything more stinging.
That is the reason why I take something from daily Dominican life as an object of reflection. Let’s say…, something as widespread in everyday conversations as sports or politics. Better, since it is about philosophizing, both topics, but linked. I start with what is easiest and end with what I know something about.
The Creole winter ball season has just begun. This is always intertwined with the “’World’ Series”. It is as if, not destiny, but sporting devotion, intertwined our country with that of the troubled north, always tempted by one of those dignitaries that Rubén Darío baptized last century as “Alexander-Nebuchadnezzar.”
But nothing; For now, the important thing is that close and spectacular bond that Spanishized baseball gives us.
Undoubtedly, there are other sports competing for the majority attention of viewers here and there. Speed is usually the Achilles Heel of the ball, compared to some other sports activities, those predominant in videos and on the small screen. I don’t know each person’s preference. However, for me, the ball has some reflective, intellectual tone.
I sense that baseball fans are united and assimilated, with very high probability, by the speculations and discussions that each strategy and tactic used provokes among the spectators, play after play, each executed with premeditation and without abuse, unlike what It seems how many times we see a stampede of players, from one side of the sports field to the other, relying on circumstantial improvisation and chance.
Furthermore, what can be said about the patience and insightful intuition required to scrutinize the dialogue between pitcher and catcher, the signals to the batter or base runners, and all, at the expense of the batter on duty deciphering the pitch.
So, yes, the pace of the game may be slower and tiring; However, in the shadow of chess, it is also more mental, demanding and participatory, since it requires a fanatic, not only emotional and spectator, but – in addition – reflective, haughty and grumbling.
Now, what leads me to think about something deeper in the ball is what may lead to greater divergences between fans of American and Dominican roots. Let me explain.
To my knowledge, baseball is the only sport that allows and encourages theft. Forget about corruption, which like gangrene corrodes the social body and all its institutional framework. Steal, yes, both the first and the rest of the pads. It’s about a good dose of speed and excitement.
So stealing, yes, I already said it, but the significant thing is that if the referee decked out – not in a toga, but in his mourning uniform – sings ‘out’, ‘out’ stays. Anyone can be emboldened, even the player himself or the affected leader, but if after verification, the ‘out’ is ratified, ‘out’ remains, even if the stands fall with fury and insults fly like poisoned arrows.
The outcome is well known. The expelled Protestant leaves and, in certain cases, is even fined. It is there where I catch the light of a certain political reflection.
Indeed, how are politics, the favorite sport of many on this side of the planet, and baseball similar? The winning answer, just a shot away.
The respective actors of the polis or the ball stadium are just that, essential participants in the proper performance of their respective tasks, but not – read correctly: it is impossible for them to pretend to be – arbiters of their own cause. Both in the polis and in said stadium, the fundamental thing is that, above good and bad actions, the rules and those who interpret and judge them in each case prevail. Only the referee, in the stadium, or the judge, in public affairs, clarify each incident. No other participants. There is no one who is above the law or the regulations, and what the judges or referees, respectively, decide what they say.
The big difference between both activities, however, is that in baseball no player becomes the arbiter of his own cause. In politics – perhaps because of ambition or because of Lord Acton; “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely” – yes.
From there I get a lesson in political philosophy, accompanied by two morals of common sense, if not some popular wisdom.
Lesson. Politics is not comparable to the ball: no politician can play and judge his own performance and actions. Therefore, universal history is the best and most true teacher. It teaches us that a ruler, whoever he is and wherever he is, speaks the language he knows, in the historical moment in which he lives, if he judges his own cause and imposes his self-acquittal sentence, he embodies the most absolute, tyrannical autocracy. and adverse to democracy and good government of that rational objectivity of a universal nature that – in any polis – is the law, according to its Aristotelian-Thomistic-Hegelian understanding.
First moral. Who knows if, at last, the saying of a certain orthodox dialectic is verified. The opposites meet and exchange. Let’s understand the tongue twister, American democracy, independent of the question of genes, is equal to its neighbors.
And, second moral, The relative advantage of sports discipline over politics is this: he who makes the law, does not cheat.
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