Happy Friday!

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

“God Bless MLB Spring Training!”

Thirty Major League teams. Thirty groups of fans who right now share the hope that this is their year. However irrational that hope may be. Is there ever a more optimistic time during the year?

The Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres kicked off the spring training season Thursday. By Saturday, all 30 Major League teams will be in action in the Cactus League and Grapefruit League.

Our Tom Sileo has written a lovely, almost poetic ode to Spring Training and shares some exciting news about his daughter Natalie and the Washington Nationals, “God Bless MLB Spring Training.”

Keeping with our Nation’s Pastime theme, here are a couple trivia questions for you on this Friday morning: Who is Katie Casey? And what does she have to do with one of baseball’s greatest traditions? Answer below.

Happy Anniversary, James and Betty!

We interrupt The Brew for this special message from our Founder, James Robison:

Only God could give to a fatherless, very timid boy a woman filled with unconditional, unshakable, redemptive love named Betty. Happy 61st Anniversary!

Sweetheart, no words can adequately describe the gratitude I have to God and to you for being the most powerful, transforming influence possible at my side all these years.

Love forever, James

Hey, Great American Family! Hey, Candace Cameron-Bure! You want to do a romance that’ll put Hallmark to shame? Do their love story. You can thank me later.

Meanwhile, James is also celebrating the release of his new book with fellow Stream co-founder Jay Richards. It’s called Fight the Good Fight: How an Alliance of Faith and Reason Can Win the Cultural War and it is g-r-e-a-t. We are honored to have the chance to share excerpts with you. In fact, the first excerpt, “Open War: Whether You Would Risk It Our Not,” went up yesterday.

Biden Let Dog Commander Bite Secret Service 24 Times Before Dog Was Removed

Newly released records indicate that Joe Biden’s dog Commander bit Secret Service agents at least 24 times before being removed from the White House. The dog’s threat was so persistent that the Secret Service was forced to change its protections strategy for the president and First Family when the dog was present.

Keep in mind, Biden’s dog Major also had to be removed after he bit a few agents. Even their supposedly mellow dog Champ has taken a couple bites.

Newsflash: The dogs ain’t the problem.

Jonathan Turley digs into the legal liability the Bidens would have they not been … the Bidens, expressing his amazement that nothing was done sooner. Your pooch bites one person when you’re aware it’s aggressive and you’re in trouble. Biting 24 times?! Its good to be the king.

But this is bigger than dogs.

First, Joe Biden allowed his dog to attack agents dozens of times. Agents who have vowed to take a bullet for Biden and his family. That’s how he treats the people sworn to protect him. Just pieces of meat for his dogs. (How’s that compare to mean tweets on your scale of cruelty and indifference?) If that’s how low he thinks of the Secret Service, how low does he think of you and me?

Second, consider the dogs, consider his kids, consider the country. Why does everything Biden is responsible for turn dysfunctional and destructive?

Which gets us to the border. (Look! We made it to the border, and didn’t need a cartel, DHS app or U.S.-government funded NGO!)

7.3 Million Illegal Immigrants Let In By Joe Biden

According to Border Patrol, some 7.3 million illegal immigrants have crossed into the U.S. since Biden took office.

That is greater than the population of 36 states. And has created a 51st state … the state of chaos.

After three years of denying there’s a crisis, and days after saying there was nothing more he could do to secure the border, the president is supposedly considering executive action to greatly curb the illegal immigration flow. Perhaps. Might be a good idea to actually enforce the laws on the books, too. In any event, that still leaves 7.3 million here on his watch. Meanwhile, Venezuela has reportedly stopped allowing flights of deported illegals sent back by the Biden Administration.

With Texas defying the White House and putting up razor wire in Eagle Pass, the cartels are shifting their illegal immigrant pathways west to California. The chief arrivals, as the Daily Mail reports, are from China.

Sources tell Fox News’ Bill Melugin border agents encountered 208 Chinese nationals Monday, and 452 in three days. That’s more than in all of 2021. Some 20,000 have entered thus far since the start of FY2024.

Since we’re solution oriented here at The Stream, here’s an idea: Let’s guard the border with Joe Biden’s dogs.

“Take Me Out to the Ballgame”

Finally, we get to our trivia questions. Since 1908, baseball fans have been singing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” during the seventh inning stretch. The lyrics were by a vaudevillian named Jack Norworth, who dashed off the song in 15 minutes during a subway ride. He’d never even been to a baseball game, but figured the time had come for a baseball song and he needed new material for his act. Norworth then asked composer Albert Von Tilzer to put it to music. The song became an instant hit.

Few realize that the part we sing at games is just the chorus of the song. The verses tell the story of a young woman who is obsessed with baseball: Katie Casey. This when few women attended baseball games. We would think the name choice is a reference to “Casey at the Bat,” suggesting that even though Mighty Casey struck out, he still passed on his love of the game. However, in 2013 a writer named George Boziwick wrote a delightful history of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” suggesting “Katie Casey” represented the young, single, female Irish immigrants working hard to make their way in America.

Today, she can be that wife, sister, girlfriend we all know who is “base ball mad.”

Katie Casey was baseball mad.
Had the fever and had it bad;
Just to root for the home town crew,
Ev’ry sou Katie blew.
On a Saturday, her young beau
Called to see if she’d like to go,
To see a show but Miss Kate said,
“No, I’ll tell you what you can do.”

“Take me out to the ball game,
Take me out with the crowd.
Buy me some peanuts and cracker jack,
I don’t care if I never get back,
Let me root, root, root for the home team,
If they don’t win it’s a shame.
For it’s one, two, three strikes, you’re out,
At the old ball game.”

Katie Casey saw all the games,
Knew the players by their first names;
Told the umpire he was wrong,
All along good and strong.
When the score was just two to two,
Katie Casey knew what to do,
Just to cheer up the boys she knew,
She made the gang sing this song:

“Take me out to the ball game,
Take me out with the crowd.
Buy me some peanuts and cracker jack,
I don’t care if I never get back,
Let me root, root, root for the home team,
If they don’t win it’s a shame.
For it’s one, two, three strikes, you’re out,
At the old ball game.”

Here’s to all the ladies who inspire their boys … and girls … to victory at the ol’ ball game!

Along The Stream

Don’t miss part two of John Zmirak and Jason Jones’s series, “Putin’s Revenge.” This piece is called, “Obama Was the Anti-Gorbachev, to Pull Our System Down.”

 

Al Perrotta is the Managing Editor of The Stream, co-author, with John Zmirak, of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration and co-author of the counter-terrorism memoir Hostile Intent: Protecting Yourself Against Terrorism.