A Battle in the Bronx and Another in the Heartland
That the two events began just 43 minutes apart was a tough break for New Yorkers who planned to watch both. From Cleveland, it was Game 2 of the quadrennial presidential debate series, starring the vice presidential candidates from the Democratic and Republican parties. And from the Bronx, it was Game 1 of the American League Division Series, featuring the New York Yankees against the Minnesota Twins.
The result was that many people watched the two simultaneously, attempting to take in sports and politics together. Of course, some restaurants and bars tried to separate the events. San Marcos, an East Village hot spot that hosted a sizable and boisterous crowd for last week’s presidential debate, planned to go that route. “We’re going to have the game on up here and the debate on in the back,” said Adem Garaghty, the manager of San Marcos, shortly before the night’s excitement began.
Other places, such as the Manhattan Chili Company in Times Square, decided to show both events — one with volume and the other muted. “We’re going to have the debate on that one with the sound on, and the game on the other one,” said Iftakar Miah, pointing to the two televisions at opposite ends of the bar. Nevada Smith’s on Third Avenue planned to use the same strategy, except there, the Yankee game would get the sound. And still some others, such as the Houlihan’s just off the main concourse in Penn Station, opted to show both events with sound on televisions less than ten feet apart, forcing the debate exchanges to compete with the roar of the stadium crowd.
So what were New Yorkers’ views of the big night? Well, probably something like this:
It began with predictions from MSNBC’s Chris Matthews and ESPN’s Peter Gammons, and heated up with two squandered scoring opportunities for the Yankees in the early innings.
After two, with the score tied 0-0, Gwen Ifill of PBS introduced the night’s debaters — Sen. John Edwards, the Democratic challenger, and Vice President Dick Cheney, the Republican incumbent. They each began with a polite tone, but the cordiality didn’t last long.
In the top of the third, Edwards and the Twins went on the offensive. “Mr. Vice President, there is no connection between the attacks of September 11 and Saddam Hussein,” Edwards said. “The 9/11 Commission has said it. Your own secretary of state has said it. And you’ve gone around the country suggesting that there is some connection. There’s not.” And with a single by Michael Cuddyer, a sacrifice bunt by Henry Blanco, and a RBI-single from Shannon Stewart, the Twins posted the first run of the division series.
Cheney charged back quickly, denying the senator’s claims and questioning the consistency and conviction of the Democratic ticket. “I’m saying specifically that I don’t believe [Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry] has the qualities we need in a commander in chief,” he said, adding, “He doesn’t display the qualities of somebody who has conviction.” With that, the Yankees’ Jorge Posada grounded into a double play — the team’s third of five that night — thwarting a potential rally in the fourth and leaving his team still trailing 1-0. And on Iraq, Cheney repeated the Bush campaign’s trademark accusations that Edwards and Kerry have “flip-flopped” their positions in response to changing political winds. “We’ve seen a situation in which first they voted to commit troops to send them to war … then they came back and when the question was whether or not to provide them with the resources they needed, body armor, spare parts, ammunition, they voted against it.”
In the fifth, Ifill, the moderator, shifted her focus to the domestic sphere — which didn’t matter too much since neither debater seemed to answer any of her questions anyway. But then, in the sixth, Jacque Jones padded Minnesota’s lead with a solo jack to left, silencing the stadium crowd.
With the Yankees now down 2-0, Cheney touted the Bush administration’s work on the economy, Medicare, and education, citing “33 million students who’ve benefited from No Child Left Behind” and “40 million seniors who benefited from the reform of the Medicare system.” The Vice President also addressed jobs, although only for a moment, and criticized Kerry’s senate record on taxes — which followed up an earlier jab at Edwards concerning his attendance record during his six years on Capitol Hill. From there, a major argument broke out over Ruben Sierra’s seventh-inning homer, which fans would later learn flew just wide of the left-field foul pole.
Edwards then blasted Cheney’s voting patterns from his days as a congressman from Wyoming. “I’m surprised to hear [Cheney] talk about records,” he said. “When he was one of 435 members of the United States House, he was one of 10 to vote against Head Start, one of four to vote against banning plastic weapons that can pass through metal detectors. He voted against the Department of Education. He voted against Meals on Wheels for seniors. He voted against a holiday for Martin Luther King. He voted against a resolution calling for the release of Nelson Mandela in South Africa.”
At the seventh-inning stretch, Cheney and Mike Mussina, the Yankees’ ace, seemed to be out of gas — the Vice President at one point declining to use his allotted reply time and Mussina moving high into his pitch count. Manager Joe Torre went straight to the bullpen for the eighth, and fortunately for Cheney, Ifill called for closing statements as the Yankees prepared to make a late-game rally.
The rally never came, though, and the Twins held off the A.L. East champions to take Game 1 on the road. As for the action in Cleveland, despite the bold post-debate proclamations from the Spin Room, neither Cheney nor Edwards captured any sort of monumental victory. Overall, the night’s dueling events produced exciting, well-contested match-ups; but more importantly, they both set the stage for excitement still to come: Game 2 of the Yankees-Twins series on Wednesday and Game 3 of the Bush-Kerry battle on Friday.
