On Wednesday Republican lawmakers won the congressional baseball game at Nationals Park for the first year in a row. The game had 20,000 constituents watching and ended with a 16-6 score after seven innings.
The congressional baseball game was first started in 1909 and has been running intermittently since then. In the more than 100-year history of the games, no Black woman had ever played on the Democrat’s team, but that changed on Wednesday when Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) entered the field in the fifth inning.
Crockett told CNN before the game that she was playing for all little Black girls who had big dreams, whether those included playing professional baseball or having a place in Congress. She added that she wanted to show them that they were capable of doing it and that they could possibly do it better than her.
The game raised over $1.5 million which will mainly go to three organizations: the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Washington, the Washington Literacy Center, and the Washington Nationals Philanthropies. Some of the funds raised will also go to the United States Capitol Police Memorial fund in honor of the officers who responded to the shooting at a Republican practice in 2017. The shooting, which has been classified as a domestic terrorism incident, resulted in House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) having serious wounds, and four other lawmakers were also injured.
Many GOP lawmakers have now stated that the reason they are entering the field is because of Scalise. Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.) specifically pointed out that he had never played prior to that point but that following what had happened he knew he needed to join the game and not let extremists win.
