Posted on 05/16/2009 12:44:29 AM PDT by nickcarraway
He was a freshman in high school - maybe 14 years old, maybe 15. Every year, there was a parade through Lexington, Va., which, besides serving as the childhood stomping grounds for one Charlie Manuel, housed Washington and Lee Law School and Virginia Military Institute. The way the Phillies manager tells it, he was attending that parade when a convertible in the procession rolled to a stop near where he was standing. Perched on the back of the car were dignitaries. One was Miss America. The other was Harry S Truman. Truman saw Manuel standing along the parade route and beckoned to him.
"Son," the 33rd president of the United States said, "Why don't you come here and open the door?"
Yesterday, Manuel was the one walking through the door, this time side-by-side with the man they call president, each of them striding in his own recognizable gait, each acknowledging the same round of applause as they converged on a makeshift stage on the South Lawn of the White House.
Despite the differences in age, skin color and upbringing, the parallels between the two men couldn't have been more obvious if Barack Obama had outlined them in a speech (which, coincidentally, he later did).
Both encountered significant obstacles en route to the spot they shared for 20 minutes yesterday afternoon. Both lost their fathers before their rise to fame, Manuel at 19 when Charles Sr. committed suicide and Obama at 21 when Barack Sr. perished in a car crash. Each took an unconventional path to his current perch, Manuel starring as a player in Japan before working his way up the coaching ladder as a hitting guru, and Obama overcoming long odds to become the first African-American president of the United States. And both suffered a heartbreaking loss in the middle of the most important campaigns of their lives, Manuel losing his mother June during the National League Championship Series and Obama losing his beloved grandmother Madelyn in the week leading up to the presidential election.
The challenges facing both men on this particular day were as disparate as a grand slam and an infield fly, as a campaign rally and an economic crisis. Outside the White House, people staged a rally begging Obama's help in halting the fighting in Sri Lanka. After meeting with the Phillies, the president was scheduled to duck into a meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Manuel and his Phillies, meanwhile, would later depart for a game at Nationals Park in hopes of snapping a two-game losing streak.
Yet leaders are refined by fires of all degrees, and yesterday was a day to reflect on the flames that brought these two men together. In a speech that lasted roughly 10 minutes, the president mentioned the Phillies' come-from-behind win of the National League East. He mentioned their supposedly underdog status against the Dodgers and the Rays.
"We share something in common, because no one thought I was going to win either," Obama said.
And then he mentioned Manuel, and the loss he suffered during the NLCS, and the empathy he felt later that fall when his own grandmother passed away.
"Charlie," Obama said, "I admired your perseverance through those trying times. I know how hard that must have been on you."
Some will say that sports are meaningless, that the true champions are the movers and shakers who pace the halls of Capitol Hill, the suits talking policy in power lunches at Old Ebbitt Grill, the protesters outside the White House gates with their megaphones and microphones and signs.
And while they might be right, there also seems to be a strange power in a bat and a ball and a World Series trophy. You might call it the power of diversion. After the ceremony, various White House aides and media types swarmed Manuel, begging him to pose for a picture, to shake a hand, to slip off his championship ring and pass it around.
Later, they would return to their roles shaping and covering the progress of the Free World. But for a few moments on a muggy spring afternoon, serious folks with serious job descriptions were reduced to googly-eyed children. One reporter from a prominent Washington magazine showed up in a black business suit, underneath of which she wore a gray Phillies T-Shirt to go with her red high heels.
Earlier, during the ceremony on the South Lawn, Obama cracked on campaign manager David Plouffe, a Wilmington, Del., native and huge Phillies fan.
"I'm not sure whether he cared more about my victory or the Phillies' victory," the president said.
Hours later, after the South Lawn had been cleared and the television cameras packed away, Manuel sat in the visitors' dugout at Nationals Park, a green field glistening in front of him. As is necessary in a 162-game baseball season, the focus had already moved to that night's game. In the batting cages behind him, players such as Jimmy Rollins and Eric Bruntlett honed their swings. At a computer in the front of the clubhouse, Chase Utley watched video.
But for one final moment, there was a chance to reflect.
"I said today," Manuel said, "this is a good way to really put the last chapter on 2008."
It has been 192 days since Obama won his historic election, and 199 days since Manuel won his historic World Series.
Now, the focus of both men is trained in a similar direction: the present.
Affirmative action and fraud?
Obama had nothing to do with the World Series. Spew at this piece of vapid 0-worship.
In Charlie’s defense, when he was told last year that Pres. Bush would pick Jamie Moyer and Chase Utley as the building blocks for a team, Charlie replied respectfully, “Well, he’s a good baseball man.”
HUH????
Weirditude.
Charlie Manuel was born in a car and Obama was born in ... uhhh ... never mind.
Charlie Manuel father was a Pentecostal preacher and Obama father was a ... uhhh ... never mind.
Charlie Manuel has been a manger since 1983 Obama has been in charge since ... uhhh ... never mind.
*”We share something in common, because no one thought I was going to win either,” Obama said. *
Utter bullsh*t on both accounts. Since 2004 when Obama spoke to the Dem convention his name was always mentioned as high on the list of candidates and the Phillies had been knocking on the door in the NL East since about the same time.
I’ll say one thing that Obama and Charlie Manuel have in common, they’re both total idiots/blind squirrels. They’ve finally found a nut—good for them. Neither will repeat the feat.
I have been watching the Phils since 1947. They are like the Eagles, a lunchbox crew who works hard even when they are the losingness team in sports history. Obama is not a working stiff and he is a socialist pacifist. The Phils have to be capitalists, they get paid millions, and they sure are not pacifists but sometimes they hit and pitch that way!
Wow! I hope you know something that a lot of baseball fans and especially Phillies fans don't know because that comparison is utter BS.
Charlie has paid his dues mightily to win that World Series and so have the Phillies. Yeah, they may not repeat, but a lot of champs don't. Big deal.
I'd rather the Phillies repeat than the 0.
SZ
Manuel is just like Obama insofar as he’s been given cherry situations in which anyone who didn’t succeed would look like a fool.
So, please, remind me—how many World Series titles did Manuel have before 2008? He never made it past the LDS with Cleveland (despite having those *stacked* lineups [Manny, JuanGone, Alomar, Thome]) OR Philadelphia [Utley, Howard, Rollins] until last year. How do you win 54 percent of your games and never win one playoff series until your 7th try?
His teams were ALWAYS stacked and expected to contend. So for Obama to claim otherwise is just another steamin’ pile of crap that fell out his mouth.
Well, taking your shi**y attitude and tone into account, managers don’t win games, teams do.
‘Nuf said.
SZ
My attitude and tone are not what kept Charlie Manuel’s teams from winning, so I don’t know what your problem is.
Managers might not win games but their decisions can certainly lose them.
Oh, and when people say “’nuf said”, it never really is enough.
So says the poster who thinks everyone else but them has a problem and has to keep posting inane replies to keep something going or making something out of nothing when they're the ones who placed their foot firmly in their mouth.
GR
SZ
Nice run-on sentence. You should look into finally getting that GED.
Thanks for proving my point, you just can’t let it go. Jeez, get a life or learn to just stfu once in a while.
SU
You’re sounding an awful lot like a Democrat, swearing and trying to change the subject.
You’re sounding an awful lot like a Democrat
No, casting aspersions like you do is what liberals/democrats do.
You're the one who got their panties in a knot because I called you out on your insulting remarks.
Again, you proved my point, you are obsessed with getting the last word in even if it means resorting to name calling.
You have yet to tell us why you think Manuel is a good manager and refute my point that he simply finally got lucky.
I’ll keep answering these posts until you do.
LOL!!
That wasn’t the point of my reply to your insulting the man. You compared him to the lowest of low, you obviously have a serious axe to grind with Charlie. Sorry about that, I don’t. I am able to recognize that not all the managers that have an all-star team playing for them can’t all win the WS. NYY, NYM and LA come to mind. Let’s also talk about the Atlanta Braves of the ‘90s and into the new millenium. 14 Division championships and only ONE WS win. Do you have the same problem with Bobby Cox as you do for Charlie?
SZ
So is 0 going to make time to meet with the Pope?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.