A little over a year ago, I tapped into a lifetime of knowledge gained from playing and coaching baseball to break down whether Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries knows how to swing a baseball bat. In the interest of equal time and pointing and laughing, Republican Ohio Gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy finds himself in the same hot seat now. I admittedly extrapolated a swing from the lone photo Jeffries provided and poked fun at him over a literal Little League pose, and I am willing to believe his reported history as a good high school baseball player was somewhere in that abomination of his top hand grip. Vivek however, is not so lucky.
Just a couple days ago, Ramaswamy provided us with video of his, well, definitely not talents. I was poking fun at Jeffries the way one baseball player pokes fun at another, but will not be affording Vivek the same common ground. In my decade of coaching 11 and 12 year olds, I can count on one hand the number of children I’ve seen with worse swings than this.
…who thought this was a good idea?
Does…does his campaign think this video makes Vivek look manly?
This is a Michael Scott scene! Ramaswamy makes Hakeem Jeffries’ photo look like a Mike Trout baseball card. This offends me. Viscerally. As a human, especially one who was partially raised on dirt and grass and failure. Baseball is hard, but not this hard.
My insulted baseball brain is taking the wheel now, and needs to break this down swing by swing just to get the rage out. Vivek took 11, so I’m gonna take 11 of my own.
Swing #1: Weak Foul Ball to the Right
If an 11-year-old child walked on to my baseball field and swung that way, I would not only assume that was the first time they ever touched a baseball bat, but also they are only here because their parents need to get them out of the house. There are two kinds of clay to be molded in Little League baseball: kids who need babysitters and everyone else. Vivek is absolutely the kid whose mom is only making him be there because she’s also sending him to theater camp, golf camp (as is evident in his swing), tennis camp (we’ll get to that later), and all the other pretty boy upper middle class sports and activities. As their coach, I would tell this small child very gently that they don’t know what they are doing and need to abandon everything they know, and if they trust me, in one hour, I can have them hitting line drives in at least one direction. Vivek is the kid who won’t listen.
Swing #2: Line Drive up the Middle on an Eephus
Clearly traumatized by the speed of the pitching machine, I’d bet good money they cut the camera between swing 1 and swing 2 to slow the machine waaaay down (and that they cut the beginning of swing 1 so you don’t see the ball coming the whole way the way you do in his second swing). Vivek ropes a pitch right up the middle, the kind of line drive that makes us coaches beam with pride. That’s exactly where it’s supposed to go. I’m also assuming that swing 2 is probably more like take 100. I desperately need to see the video of the negotiation to slow the pitch machine down.
Swing #”3”: Routine Fly Out to Right Field
Emboldened by finally solving the speed and timing of a pitch thrown by an 8-year-old, Vivek is in a groove now. His golf swing out to center field is starting to reveal itself, and while I’m sure his hands probably thought that was a big bomb, none of these are big bombs. That’s a lazy fly ball that honestly the right fielder probably drops because damnit where else am I supposed to put the kids just waiting for their parents to pick them up?
Swing # Make Up Your Own Number: Owned Again
Another one where we don’t see it coming out of the machine and he’s super late on it and meekly fouls it off to the right! I’m starting to think that the person editing this video secretly hates Vivek, or maybe all these Republicans pretending to be regular old Joes like you and me are lying! Or both? Probably both.
Swing #5 I Guess: The Greatest Thing Vivek Has Ever Done
This might be the only nice thing I ever say about Vivek Ramaswamy, but my baseball spidey senses also sense this take as one of the fastballs, and even though he’s still late, that’s a hard line drive right at a terrified second baseman about to make the play that makes him either love or quit baseball. If he gloves it, it has the added benefit of teaching brats like Vivek that hitting it hard is one half of the job, hitting it where they aren’t is the other. Also, what the hell does “bring higher standards to our schools” mean? I’m intentionally not engaging the political part of this video because there’s more substance in his baseball “skills” than anything he’s stumping for right before demonstrating to the world that he has no idea what he’s doing. Metaphors abound in the GOP these days.
Swing #6: I See a Baseball Tennis Player!
You can tell before this swing that someone whispered in his ear how to actually swing a bat because this is the first take where he tries to keep his back leg down. He fails at it, but you can see him try while also keeping his hands tighter to his body. Every swing up to this point has been more golf swing than anything resembling something I’ve seen children do on a baseball field. This is his first real attempt at what you teach 8-year-olds, which is to keep your back heel down as you swing and squish the bug under it. He squishes the bug under his toes, which is what you do in fancy boy sports like tennis and golf.
You can tell that Vivek is sensitive about the reaction to this video because one of his two pinned posts is the exact same “10 things I’m gonna do for Ohio” video, but of him playing tennis far better than he played baseball. That video is from June 17th.
Do not put in the paper that Vivek is mad.
Swing #7: This Kid Will Never Hit an Inside Pitch, Will He?
I need to start wrapping this up now, but I just gotta say this jumpy pop fly that maybe gets to first base make me audibly laugh out loud.
Swing #8: Triple in the Gap!
Bam! Right on the money! Vivek is back and that pitching machine is as slow as ever!
Swing #9: Pop Fly to Second Base
I need to issue a correction on a previous post of mine: Vivek is not back. He is getting dominated in close by the 8-year-old inside the pitching machine and fouling it off the part of the bat that makes your hands vibrate the rest of the day.
Swing #10: The Pitching Machine Legally Owns the Inside Half of Vivek’s Plate
Why the hell didn’t the editors of this video put one of the hits here? Don’t you want to finish strong and not with yet another meek foul ball off to the right signaling to everyone that you simply cannot handle the pitcher’s stuff? I’m convinced, either Ramaswamy’s video editor has seen at least one baseball game before and has a grudge to settle, or maybe this shlub dressed like a junior investment banker at Goldman Sachs and everyone he surrounds himself with are rabidly out of touch with American traditions. All I know is, this guy has never touched a baseball bat in his life, and do not put in the paper that he is mad about it.
