WASHINGTON — Lawmakers had a clear message after Republicans’ congressional baseball practice was shot up on Wednesday morning: “Play ball.”
The managers of the Republican and Democratic baseball teams came together for a joint press conference just hours after one of their own was wounded by a man who opened fire on their early morning practice to make clear that Thursday’s charity game — one of the last vestiges of bipartisan comity in the nation’s Capitol — wouldn’t be canceled.
“We’re playing the game tomorrow. We’re united not as Republicans and Democrats but as United States representatives,” said Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.). “It will be ‘play ball’ tomorrow night.”
Barton said that the Fallen Officers Fund had been added as one of the charities the game will benefit.
Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.), Barton’s friendly rival, said that the two had agreed “we’re not going to let incidents like this change our way of life or our daily routines.”
Doyle was one of the Democratic players who heard about the tragedy during their own practice across town, and huddled in the dugout to pray for their fellow congressmen. He invited the entirety of the Republican team to the Democratic Club for dinner Wednesday night to “share some food and drink and get to know each other a little bit better” with an aim at lowering the hate-filled invective that both men said had gone too far.
The suspect who opened fire on the GOP practice was an avowed liberal Democrat, though lawmakers across the hill said that violent political rhetoric had gotten so severe that hardliners on both sides were at risk of crossing the line.
Barton, choking up, said when his first son had been born in the 1980s he’d gotten as many gifts from Democrats as Republicans, as Doyle, his longtime friend, patted him on the back in consolation. Both lamented how partisan Washington and the nation had become, and while Barton said he thought the moment could be a turning point back toward civility, Doyle sounded a more pessimistic tone.
“I’ve seen us all say it’s going to change and it hasn’t,” he said.
That’s true: Congressmen made many of the same comments and commitments to civility after then-Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.) was shot in 2011, but things have only gotten worse on Capitol Hill and across the country.
Lawmakers in both parties said throughout the day that they hoped to play, in order to stand up to the partisan hatred that could fuel a shooting spree like the one that happened on Wednesday.
Rep. Roger Williams (R-Tex.), whose staffer was among those wounded by the gunman, badly injured his own ankle diving for cover into the first base dugout during the practice. He said he’d be out on the field anyways.
“We’re going to play baseball tomorrow. … I’ll be the one coaching third on crutches,” he said. “If we don’t play this baseball game and we go home, then they win.”