I’m more of a bookworm than a sports fan, so I don’t often look to games or the people who play them for symbolism. And I have reported on professional sports, so I know first-hand that far too much attention is paid to what ballplayers have to say relative to the profundity of their reflections. Nowhere is this more evident than in the ridiculously crowded New York media market, where I worked for six years. It is an appalling sight to see more than a dozen educated adults crowded around some sweaty kid in a jockstrap, writing down every word he says – when he is saying precisely nothing. A media watchdog group once pointed out that the New York Times had more people covering the Yankees than covering the entire continent of Africa. The editors of the Times were probably staffing these two coverage areas about equal to the public’s relative passion for reading about them, but still, it’s a horrific thing to contemplate. The presidential campaign of Barack Obama is the one political development in recent memory that is being covered in the kind of obsessive detail usually reserved for beloved sports franchises. This is true all the way down to the beleaguered Obama beat writers, who at times look at a loss to come up with anything new to say about a season that is simply too damn long. So they do another, “Will Hillary be the VP?” story – then get murderously drunk in some hotel bar and console themselves with thoughts of the novel they will get out of this when it’s all (finally) over. I am thinking about comparisons between Obama and baseball after reading Curt Schilling’s blog, 38 Pitches, over the weekend. I went to college in Boston and got infected, somewhat, with Red Sox fever. A Red Sox game or news report about the team always catches my eye or ear, so I followed news of Schilling’s shoulder woes when it was reported that he faces surgery that may end his career as a power pitcher. When Schilling is in the news, reporters always quote from his blog, no doubt thrilled to obtain a ballplayer’s opinion without standing beside him in a crush of other men while the athlete strips off his sweaty clothes. These reports, in turn, always remind me of the existence of 38 Pitches, so I go get lost for a few minutes in Curt Schilling’s mind, which appears to be better furnished than many other athletes’ mentalities. I had forgotten, however, that he is Republican. On his blog, he is stumping hard for John McCain. No surprise, looking at the numbers alone – Schilling’s salary was $13 million last year, which puts him in the tax bracket best protected by Republicans – though after the George W. Bush (and Matt Blunt) years, I am shocked whenever I discover a thinking Republican. Why do I care? If I am a bookworm, not a sports nut? If I don’t look to games and the people who play them for my symbolism? I care because of The Curse. You know, The Curse that descended on the Boston Red Sox when team owner Harry Frazee sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees in the 1919-20 off-season in order to finance a Broadway musical. This deal with the devil was understood to curse the Red Sox, as thereafter they kept losing and the Yankees kept winning. The Curse was alive and well when I moved to Boston in 1984. Twenty years later, in 2004, Schilling and his bloody sock helped to beat the Yankees and then go on to win the World Series and disperse The Curse. This feat earned Schilling (and a number of other standout Red Sox players) reputations as miracle workers. Talk about curses – then think what Barack Obama is up against. The Red Sox title drought of 1918 to 2004 is nothing compared to the drought that everybody other than white men have experienced in trying to win the White House. This past April 30 marked the 219th anniversary of the day the first U.S. president (George Washington – even professional athletes know that) first took the oath of office. That’s 219 years without a black president. Talk about a curse! His historic bloody sock aside, I don’t think Curt Schilling has any ability to work miracles or reverse the force of history. After reading his blog, I doubt he has any unusual degree of insight into the American political process. However, when you have the weight of 219 years of white male presidents weighing you down, and you’re trying to put the first black man in the White House, you’ll take all the help you can get. Schilling, you’ve got the wrong guy. Stay on the right side of history and curses – go with Obama! “Ball Three” is an occasional baseball column that complements “Cardinals Commentary” by Alvin A. Reid.