Sportswriter Rick Reilly Mocks, Shuts Down Trump ‘Could Have Been Major League Baseball Player’ Lie

There’s a day that comes in every man’s life, and it’s a sad day when he realizes he’ll never play Major League Baseball (Josh – The West Wing)

We all think of golf as being Trump’s chosen sport. He’s clearly obsessed with it whether it’s playing (I use the term loosely) or buying and renovating golf properties. Or hosting events at one of his courses. What I didn’t know is that at one time he touted baseball as his passion and of course how great a player he was. According to Trump back in high school it was clear he was destined to be a Major League Baseball player. Huh? Of course a look at the record proves that he was engaging in his typical lying!

Sportswriter and Trump Tormenter Rick Reilly got wind of the baseball stuff Trump has said and decided to do a little checking. I suspect Reilly knew what he’d find or he wouldn’t have bothered but tweaking Trump about his bullshit exploits as an athlete makes for a good column. Or even a book. Reilly in case you didn’t know is the author of the book Commander In Cheat. An entire freaking book about Trump’s legendary cheating at golf! Yes, there are more than enough stories about Trump’s cheating to fill a book.  Anyway, according to The Irish Star Reilly looked up the minimal records of Trump’s high school baseball “career” and found (Cue Gomer Pyle – Surprise, Surprise Surprise!) Trump had rather overstated his “stardom.”

The linked article notes Trump’s lying isn’t limited to sports but even when he was young and relatively fit he was no athlete. At least even a halfway decent one. In fact, I suspect he was pure benchwarmer material who was only on a given team because not enough people even tried out that the coach had to cut the roster!. Reilly has long had Trump’s number. A knowledgeable and skilled sportswriter he could be both entertaining and brutal at the same time. I’ll never forget his sort of lighthearted but pointed takedown of Olympic Gold Medalist Tara Lipinski and her mom for literally leaving Tata’s dad who worked his butt off to fund “Team Tara” sitting along in the cold as they reveled in all the attention after she won. (They didn’t bother to get him the proper credentials to pass security)

In other words, Reilly calls bullshit when he sees it and snarking America’s new darling over he callousness was a ‘I don’t care if people don’t like it. I’m going to tell the truth’ type thing. When it came to Trump and golf Reilly’s takedown was EPIC. If any journalist wanted to create a Trump melt-down on the spot at one of his golf outings, or after as he lies about how great he played all they have to do is ask “When are you going to play a round with Rick Reilly?”  Well, Reilly has shown his wit over the years but even tweaking Trump about golf got old.

Now he’s got something new he can use to make fun of Trump. I remember the episode of West Wing when the opening quote was spoken (Josh’s character was a huge Mets fan) and I know damn well millions of guys who watched had, just as I did a flashback to a point in our teens or perhaps in college. It’s a visceral thing. It seems even little rich boy Trump had dreams of being a Major Leaguer like most other boys. Even tried to  play some ball. And he SUCKED.

As I said and as the linked article notes Reilly is someone who  unlike so many “real” journalists, the “pros” who cover politics has never had any qualms about calling Trump out. Or to put it in average guy terms calling bullshit on Trump’s bullshit whether it’s sports or something more serious. We aren’t told how Reilly became aware of it but as early as 2004 Trumpty touting his ‘excellence’ and that he was Captain of the New York Military Academy (his high school) baseball team. According to the Star it gets better:

Perhaps most notably in 2013, Trump posted on social media that he was said to be the best baseball player in N.Y. State. “Ask coach Ted Dobias,” he wrote. “[He] said [I was the] best he ever coached.”

Again, Reilly has been first and foremost a sportswriter so for whatever reason earlier this month he knew something non-baseball fans don’t. The sport is FULL of statistics. Long, LONG before the era of ‘Moneyball/Analytics’ baseball kept stats on everything. Unless they’d been lost or destroyed records of every team Trump ‘played’ on, every game he played in (or just sat on the bench), every box score/personal stats like hits, runs and errors(fielding mistakes) was there for anyone willing to dig through all those old paper files. Reilly chose to do so, and being a (sports) reporter did what reporters do – reported what he’d found, with I’m sure more than a little ‘In your lying face Trump!’ glee:

“Here are the facts about Donald Trump’s high school baseball career, when he says he was ‘the best player in NY,'” Reilly began. “Soph year: 0-10 (.000). Jun year: 2-9 (.222). Sen year: 1-21 (.047). The man is one giant sack of b——-.”

Attached to the tweet was a chart of Trump’s senior year statistics, as provided by Footballarchaeology.com, which showed that he had played in eight games against six different opponents, recording just one run and one hit.

I can’t seem to embed the tweet that has the chart of Trump’s senior year. You’ll have to click on the link to see it but all those games add up to one freaking hit in 21 at-bats. If you know nothing about baseball trust me when I tell you the ONLY reason Trump was issued a uniform was to have enough players to make it look like his school had a real team.  As you’d expect there was some reaction and not at all the kind of awe and admiration Trump craves. Luckily the Irish Star includes a couple at the end of their article to give you a flavor of the reaction:

Fans couldn’t resist poking fun at Trump’s statistics, with one person humorously suggesting, “I’ll bet the one hit he got in his Senior year should have been scored as an error.”

“Hahaha. He hit the ball 3 times in his whole career. Jim Abbot had a better average (2-21) in his MLB career. He was a pitcher with only one arm,” wrote another. A third joked: “The game where stats were unavailable he went 20-20 with 18 HR and 75 RBIs.”

Bravo to Rick Reilly. Clearly he’s not the least bit afraid of Trump and never has been. If only ‘real’ (as in non sports) journalists who look down their noses as sportswriters had Reilly’s guts. If they did we wouldn’t be in the mess we are in and which Trump is making worse each day. It’s true that some have stood up to Trump. Not enough. However Trump’s MAGA base reacts to this kind of thing. Most are pointedly excluded from country clubs just as I was growing up as a lower middle class kid. However most of them at least played Little League baseball.

This is the kind of thing they can relate to, so when engaging with one or more of these asshats tell them about what Reilly has reported.  They won’t want to believe you of course but there are receipts and now you have an article complete with a tweet that even sources the cited stats to hit them with. Where I come from, small-town/rural America that is these days Trump country someone who lies about being a better high school athlete than everyone knows they actually were is viewed with disdain. Most don’t want to start a bar fight, but when the bragger leaves or is out of earshot they’ll turn to the new person in town and say ‘Let me set you straight. He wasn’t jack sh*t and the handful of times he got into a game he didn’t do anything. Except f**k up!’

That’s Trump. Someone who should never be allowed off the bench and into the game because he’ll f**k up. THEN he’ll go around lying and talking about how great he was!

Friends, I know everyone begs you for money. I promise, among all those asking for spare change, we are the smallest and the hardest working. We’re a group of old, disabled people, except for one writer in his mid-50s. The rest of us are in our sixties and seventies, and this is a labor of love. All we’re asking for is the chance to keep telling the truth about Trump and help ensure democracy survives. If you can help, please do. Thank you. Ursula

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