Great political journalists live politics like the British monarchs do luxury. But if you really want to get a political journalist talking, just ask them a sports question.
Columnist George Will, whose name will forever be linked with sports after writing Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball, has proved more than anyone that sports and political journalists have the purest love affair in Washington.
Fred Barnes, executive editor of The Weekly Standard, says Will is in a class by himself.
“He has studied baseball…his books are tremendous,” Barnes said. “He’s more than just a fan.”
Barnes said he and fellow journalist Bob Novak sat next to each other at Washington Wizards basketball games for 35 years, and Barnes credits Novak for strengthening his interest in the sport.
“Bob was one of the smartest people about basketball I’ve ever met,” Barnes said.
Novak was also a big University of Maryland Terrapins fan, and Barnes, a University of Virginia graduate, attends the Cavaliers’ basketball and football games. Barnes used to have season tickets to the Redskins but gave them up after the team moved to their new stadium in Landover, Md. He also said he occasionally used Novak’s Redskins tickets - Dan Snyder, the Redskins’ owner, often invited Novak to his box.
“Bob was a guy whose life revolved around pretty much the same thing mine does, and that’s politics and political writing, and sports, and our families, and our faith,” Barnes said.
And among these diehards, there’s no greater disgrace than being a faux sports fan.
“That’s something that Bob used to tell me … one of the worst things people can do is be fake sports fans,” Barnes said. “Fake sports fans are to be denounced.”
It’s one peeve Barnes has about Obama, who earlier this year was unable to produce a name when asked on air who his favorite White Sox player was growing up. Barnes pointed out a different Obama gaffe - calling the White Sox’ old home stadium Cominskey Field rather than its proper name, Comiskey Park.
“He’s overreaching when he comes to games and is interviewed,” Barnes said despite admitting Obama was a basketball fan. “He’s a showoff with his sports knowledge, which is actually pretty thin.”
Will wasn’t easy on Obama, either.
“Barack Obama would be well advised to avoid talking about baseball,” Will said, though he too mentioned Obama’s basketball knowledge.
Barnes said he’s always been interested in sports, particularly those he classifies as the “meat and potatoes sports”—football, baseball, basketball, lacrosse (which his kids played) and soccer—but his interest has grown more intense as he’s gotten older.
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He considered being a sports journalist but decided interviewing the athletes in the locker room after the game didn’t interest him.
“I came to the conclusion I could get all I wanted out of sports without being a sports writer,” Barnes said.
That doesn’t mean he’s not interested in writing about athletes. In 2006, he wrote an article on Washington Wizards star Gilbert Arenas, the team’s marquee player until last season, when he was suspended for having guns in the locker room.
But in 2006, the story was different. Arenas was entering his fourth year with the Wizards and that season would earn his third consecutive NBA All-Star nod.
“At that point, nobody had written what a great player he was,” said Barnes, who added he’s still a fan of Arenas.
So Barnes called up the editor of the Washingtonian—who he already knew—and asked if he would like a piece on the man nicknamed Agent Zero.
Barnes said he interviewed Arenas three or four times for the article, but where he learned the most was talking to the basketball coaches.
“One of the great things about being in journalism is asking questions of people who know more about a subject than you do,” Barnes said. “That’s one of the great privileges of being in journalism.”
Barnes said lately he’s also become a hockey fan, mainly because of his son, who was given a Mario Lemieux stick via a family friend.
“When that happens when you’re a young boy, you immediately become a Penguins fan,” Barnes said. “Now, that’s kind of spilled over on me.”
Barnes’s stand is something of an act of defiance in D.C., where the Penguins are arch-rivals of the hometown Washington Capitals. Barnes spent the last Pens-Caps game in Washington one seat away from Pittsburgh star Sidney Crosby’s dad. And they had this in common: both their sons were there—though one was on the ice—wearing Crosby jerseys.
“For me, the Winter Olympics in Vancouver came down to one sport—hockey,” said Barnes, who wrote a piece for The Weekly Standard around that time about the rise of U.S. hockey.
“Hockey really is a growing sport,” he told HUMAN EVENTS.
It’s not unusual for political journalists and politicians to reach for sports conversation as part of their day jobs. Politicians from Alabama will bring up football to Barnes, because they know his son went to rival Auburn. Barnes says he enjoys talking baseball with Sen. Jim Bunning, who threw no-hitters in each league before starting his career in politics.
“Whenever I run into him, I always try to turn the conversation around to baseball,” Barnes said.
Will says he has more politicians approach him to talk about sports rather than vise versa, though he did organize baseball dinners for George W. Bush. Will says the best sports conversation he’s had with a politician has been with Bush.
Barnes wasn’t ready to offer an overall theory as to why this love affair exists between political reporters and the world of sports, but former Virginia Gov. George Allen, who just published What Washington Can Learn from the World of Sports, offered this thought about the crossover.
“Maybe the folks who cover politics like competition,” Allen said.
“They’re parallel universes,” Will said of sports and politics, and drew three examples: 1.) They’re both competitive enterprises 2.) There are clear metrics for success (you win or lose elections, you win or lose games) 3.) There’s a “booming industry” in theories about how to succeed.
“Political consultants and sportswriters have somewhat done the same thing,” Will said.
Barnes has theories about which sports attract certain political persuasions. Obama aside, Barnes thinks baseball and soccer seem to appeal to liberals, while conservatives like football, boxing, lacrosse. He also thinks conservative journalists are more likely to be sports fans than liberals (he makes an exception for baseball).
So what’s something that political journalists can learn from sports?
“Accuracy,” Allen says.
(Appropriately enough, Barnes’ other phone rang during the interview – it was a call about buying tickets to Fenway for a Red Sox game in August.)
Cartoon courtesy of Brett Noel
