Straight Up The Middle

Even baseball is no escape

By Cara Cromwell
Posted 7/21/16

In recent weeks the news in our country and around the world has been more disturbing than I can remember in a long time. Minneapolis, Dallas, Baton Rouge, Nice—the violence and the rampant …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

Log in

Register to post events


If you'd like to post an event to our calendar, you can create a free account by clicking here.

Note that free accounts do not have access to our subscriber-only content.

Day pass subscribers

Are you a day pass subscriber who needs to log in? Click here to continue.


Straight Up The Middle

Even baseball is no escape

Posted

In recent weeks the news in our country and around the world has been more disturbing than I can remember in a long time. Minneapolis, Dallas, Baton Rouge, Nice—the violence and the rampant killings are hard to understand for adults and harder to explain to children. I’ve stopped trying. The TV is off and there’s no family discussion of the world beyond Rhode Island and Pokemon Go. Perhaps I am doing a disservice to my children by not explaining to them that the roots of these conflicts go back many generations and that they are likely to continue for generations more, but it’s more important to me that their few precious years of childhood are not filled with worries about acts of terror or gun violence.

For me, baseball is an easy escape from the news—Big Papi continues to thrill us in the last half of his final year in baseball. Watching him at the All-Star game—laughing, high-fiving with a big smile and a huge hug for everyone—was a wake up. How would his life in the U.S. be different if he weren’t a recognizable sports celebrity? Do you think he has stories about being pulled over for a broken taillight? I drove around for a week with a headlight burned out and never once worried about the consequences of being pulled over. Even the fun of baseball is tainted by understanding that our country’s racial divide goes right through every clubhouse and every team.

And ugh. Politics. As we head into the most heated time in the election cycle lots of nasty things will be said about candidates up and down the ticket. Chances are good that some things will upset us and we’ll want to respond with angry words in response. It’s too easy to post, tweet or anonymously comment just to get it off our chests, isn’t it? But adding fuel to the fire is never a good idea and whether you choose to channel Martin Luther King Jr. and “turn the other cheek,” or Gandhi “keep your thoughts positive, because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive, because your words become your behavior” or my mother “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all,” perhaps the best political discourse will be a silent one this year—and maybe that’s what I can tell my kids.

Cara Cromwell is a public affairs consultant with more than twenty years experience managing issues campaigns for corporations, non-profits, associations, coalitions and candidates on both sides of the aisle.  An unaffiliated voter, serial ticket-splitter and enthusiastic Red Sox fan, she believes that in politics—and baseball—game changing action occurs in the middle, creating opportunity on the ball field  and compromise and coalition-building in the halls of power. Visit her blog, Straight Up The Middle, at straightupthemiddle.blogspot.com and follow her on Twitter @cmcromwell.

Cara Cromwell

2024 by East Bay Media Group

Barrington · Bristol · East Providence · Little Compton · Portsmouth · Tiverton · Warren · Westport
Meet our staff
Mike Rego

Mike Rego has worked at East Bay Newspapers since 2001, helping the company launch The Westport Shorelines. He soon after became a Sports Editor, spending the next 10-plus years in that role before taking over as editor of The East Providence Post in February of 2012. To contact Mike about The Post or to submit information, suggest story ideas or photo opportunities, etc. in East Providence, email mrego@eastbaymediagroup.com.