Just as parents use beads or to pennies to teach their children difficult  concepts, we here at TSD use sports to help us make sense of a complex world. So it should come as no surprise that we’d resort to a sports trade to accurately gauge the implications of  Arlen Spector’s decision to become a Democrat.  The GOP loses a respected veteran right-hander, a third or fourth starter who can give you 10-12 wins…highly valuable for a contending team, but a lot less valuable if your club’s most realistic goal is to avoid losing more than 100 games.   The Democrats deepen their bench and add a somewhat known quantity to the mix, though there are lingering doubts as to whether he can be trusted in the clutch.

The best the TSD editorial staff came up with was the Reds getting Milt Pappas from the Orioles in 1965.  Pappas wasn’t exactly greeted by Reds fans as a conquering hero — in fact, he came in under a cloud as fans were bitterly opposed to losing Frank Robinson (called an “old 30″ by the Reds GM), who went on to have a Triple Crown year.  Pappas put in two and a half respectable years with the Reds, going 30-9.  But this just doesn’t work — the GOP isn’t exactly getting back the equivalent of Frank Robinson in the Spector deal.

It’s more like acquiring, oh, I don’t know, Derek Lowe, for a Wal-Mart gift card and a coil of fake dog shit. If you can think of another rade that puts the Spector move into context — preferably one that actually happened — please let us know.

Tags: Arlen Spector, Frank Robinson, Milt Pappas

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 29th, 2009 at 4:18 pm and is filed under MLB . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.