Happy Friday again! Happy April Fool’s Eve!

Today’s extra Afternoon Brew comes with some peanuts and Cracker Jack.

Baseball is Back!

Major League Baseball got into full swing Thursday with Opening Day. Well, except when it bunted, had a check swing, or took the pitch. Yeah. That one’s so bad, our boss called down to the bullpen to have another writer start warming up.

Big rule changes are in effect. For example, pitchers and batters now have to operate under a time clock. And batters are only allowed to adjust their cup twice during a single at bat. (I may have made that up.)

What do you think of Major League Baseball’s new time clock rule?

1. A hit. Baseball moves too slowly.
2. A strike out. The beauty of baseball is it’s leisurely pace. Why mess with something that’s worked for century-and-a-half?

Take our Stream Twitter Poll!

What do you think of Major League Baseball’s new time clock rule? #OpeningDay2023

— The Stream (@Streamdotorg) March 30, 2023

They left off Option Three: “Who cares, as long as they keep grilling them Dodger Dogs!”

Do I Really Want to Go to the Stadium? D.C. D.A. Doesn’t Prosecute Over Two-Thirds of Arrests

One of the thrills of moving back to the DC area is the possibility of attending Washington Nationals games with family. Or Orioles games. (I live almost equidistance from both.)

As a little kid I was a Washington Senators fan, until they high-tailed it to Texas. I remember going to the next to last Senator’s game at RFK Stadium with my dad. I then became a die-hard Orioles fan, later falling in love with Baltimore’s Camden Yards. In recent years, summer trips home usually meant taking in a Nationals games with my sports nut sister.

But will I go downtown this season? Probably not. Not without a police escort. It’s not just that D.C. is unsafe. It’s that the political and legal leadership seems hell-bent on making the streets even more dangerous.

Take the U.S. Attorney’s office in Washington. Biden-appointed D.A. Matthew Graves declined to prosecute 67% of the arrests made that would have been tried in the D.C. Superior Court.

According to a pay-walled Washington Post story, that percentage was 35% in 2015. A decline to prosecute rate of 67% is half that of Detroit. About one-fifth of Chicago’s rate. The D.A.’s office overseeing Philly? They have only a 4% decline rate.

But the Same D.A. is Prosecuting Hundreds of J6 Prisoners … with 1200 More to Come

The story gets even more noxious when you consider Graves is the same D.A. that is prosecuting hundreds of protesters from January 6. And is promising to charge and prosecute 1200 more. This includes hundreds of law-abiding citizens with no record who did nothing more than walk into the Capitol through doors opened by Capitol Hill police and played tourist.

You know about the conditions those prisoners have been kept in. And you know many are detained without trial. Jake Lang has been held without trial for 800 days and counting. Yes. Lang did tangle with police after he was tear-gassed and deterred from trying to save Rosanne Boyland from being beaten to death by D.C. police. She would die right next to him. But 800 days behind bars, without trial, for actions this same D.A. ignores 67% of the time? Somewhere the ANTIFA rioters who burned chunks of the Nation’s Capital and tried taking down the White House are cackling hysterically.

Meanwhile, Jacob Chansley, the so-called QAnon Shaman, who was portrayed as the violent face of the J6 “Insurrection,” has been released early from prison. This comes just weeks after Tucker Carlson showed previously buried video of Chansley being escorted, let into spaces, and praying over Capitol Hill police officers.

Pro Sport Leagues Join Forces for the Smart Hearts Sports Coalition to Help Save High School Athletes from Cardiac Arrest

The NFL announced this week it’s teaming with the NBA, the NHL, Major League Baseball, Major League Soccer, the NCAA along with public health organizations to form The Smart Heart Sports Coalition. The goal? To push every state to adopt policies to prevent fatal outcomes from sudden cardiac arrest among high school students.

Buffalo Bills safety Demar Hamlin’s life was saved last season because the equipment and training was in place at the stadium when he suffered cardiac arrest. The coalition wants to ensure high schools are similarly prepared.

Now if only they could get serious about why it seems healthy young athletes are dropping like flies.

Along The Stream

In his weekly Service & Sacrifice column, Tom Sileo offers “Please Pray,” detailing Thursday’s training accident in Kentucky which took the lives of several of our finest.

We join Tom in praying for the families and comrades of the service members who perished.

Al Perrotta is the Managing Editor of The Stream, chief barista for The Brew and co-author, with John Zmirak, of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration. You can follow him at @StreamingAl at GETTR, Gab, Parler, and now at TRUTH Social.