Squirrely

If you happened to be watching the ballgame at Detroit Tigers’ Comerica Park a couple of weeks ago … you probably weren’t watching the ballgame. Like thousands of others, you were likely more engaged with the wily squirrel who spent an inning sprinting around the field.

Bright-eyed and bushy tailed, he darted into the outfield out of nowhere, deep in the sixth inning, to divert fans’ attention from the so-so showdown between the home team and the Baltimore Orioles (both fourth in their divisions, six and 11.5 games back, respectively). To their growing delight, he scampered along the warning track, over the foul lines, across the infield.

Oblivious to the increasingly irrelevant game, he also had little time for the Orioles’ third-base coach Buck Britton, who tossed a sunflower seed in his direction … or for a lone, lazy pigeon, taking his own, blasé turn on the track … or for the bemused Tigers’ staffer who held open a fence door to freedom. (The wary squirrel refused that generous offer.)

Finally, some 15 groundskeepers took advantage of the seventh inning stretch to converge, at full gallop, on the mischief-maker, who blithely eluded the puffing posse for a while. Oriole outfielder Leody Taveras jerked reflexively when the little guy leapt for sanctuary in his glove, and in shock flung him up in the air. The squirrel landed agilely, then dodged in and out of various groundskeepers’ legs and slipped through two or three of the towels flung over him, before at last being snared and carried unceremoniously from the field.

After which, deep in the underground bowels of the stadium, he managed to break loose again, leading the flummoxed groundskeepers on yet another merry, winding chase through the subterranean halls and tunnels.

Meanwhile, topside, the game’s head umpire invited the thousands on hand to give a cheer for the patient players and crew who’d run the nimble nutcracker down. As it turned out, he had totally misread the mood of the crowd (as umpires are apt to do). Instead of applause, the groundskeepers and even the respective teams were subjected to thunderous boos by fans more captivated with the squirrel than the score.

“Free the squirrel!” they chanted for a while, before sagging back to their hot dogs, peanuts, and Cracker Jacks.

As engaging as the interlude was, though, it also echoed a more worrisome development, playing out on a totally different field.

Here’s the thing. Nobody in that stadium bought tickets, drove across town, competed for parking, hiked the caverns of the concourse, trudged up and down the steep stadium steps, and put out a small fortune for refreshments to watch a squirrel run around on the grass. Most of America can do that in their yard or neighborhood park any day of the week.

But, somehow, that night in the ballpark, the time was ripe and right for an unexpected diversion – and the squirrel provided the distraction.

A distraction not unlike what we’re getting, this summer, from the Democrat Socialists / Communists suddenly dominating the news and sweeping state primaries.

Their timing's been good, too. The masses are beyond tired of and frustrated with virtually everyone else in government: our mercurial and loquacious president … the hypocritical, hyper-critical Democrats … the hapless, helpless Republicans … the perennially prevaricating once-and-future candidates … and the nattering media propagandists who lie about them all.

Day after day, tweet by tweet and soundbite by soundbite, the same names, the same voices, the same scripts and outrages. When suddenly – onto the political field races a dark little presence to reabsorb our exhausted attention.

Like the squirrel, the Socialists’ surge came as a surprise – but now they’re impossible to ignore. Like him, they’re rather enjoying the disruption they’re making: Democrat leaders trying to contain them, Republicans up in the air about the whole thing. And, like the squirrel, they really couldn’t care less what impact their actions will ultimately have on all those now enjoying the show.

These Socialists, too, have wandered from foul territory into the middle of everything – and while the more responsible among us are working hard to drive them out of a game they should have no place in, these rodents, too, are proving evasive, elusive, and bent on pursuing their own single-minded, small-minded agenda.

An agenda, that like the squirrel’s, has no interest in real freedom at all.

So many can’t see that. They’re just more than happy to watch the two big teams being frustrated – and outplayed. For growing thousands, it’s a new and exciting diversion.

And, of course, the younger the spectator, the more they root for the squirrels. Cheer for the squirrels. Vote for the squirrels. “Free the squirrels.” They can’t imagine that, in this case, there's anything dangerous in the chaos. In fact, they’re rather perked at the thought of just eliminating baseball altogether, and letting the squirrels have the ballpark. Which clearly suits the squirrels just fine.

The story goes that, during the wintry World War II Battle of the Bulge, the greatly outnumbered American soldiers besieged at Bastogne, Belgium were offered a grim choice by the German forces surrounding them: total surrender … or total annihilation.

A choice not that much different, when you think about it, than the one the Socialist-Communists are offering our nation’s voters.

The general commanding the trapped Americans fired back to the Nazis a one-word reply, in language he figured squirrels would understand.

“Nuts!” he said.

But the German commander was confused. “What does ‘Nuts’ mean?” he asked.

A nearby officer offered a direct translation.

“It means,” he said, “‘Go to hell.’” 

For all the growing cheers they’re receiving – for all the power they’re fast accumulating – the DSA squirrels, sad to say, are on their way. Not all of us are willing to go with them.