Who officiates?

e captured California — some say that was a mistake — because of the Winchester repeating rifle, barbed wire, and the transcontinental railroad. The fact that “rugged individualists” wielded all those implements just churns up the mud in the watering hole.

The prototype sports official, though he referees a team game, is also an individualist. Survey the members of any sports association about their picks in the last US presidential election. Five will get you twenty that 80% went for Bush. It’s understandable, in a way. Long ago, the conservative faction staked out “law and order” as a basic tenet of its creed. Who is more conscious of law than we? Who, more than the umpire, expects order?

Look, for example, at the non-evolution, the stability of the rules of baseball. Basketball, football, arm wrestling: their rules are writ in sand. But baseball...? Ah, baseball is a "different kind of Wendy," a phrase my daughter used to explain which of two friends was coming for the "overnight."

Continued...