Alito's raison d'être exposed: avenge 1964 Phillies loss

It has been reported that Appeals Court justice and Supreme Court nominee Samuel Altio is a bigtime Philadelphia Phillies fan and that this, outside his career, is his one pursuit. The Reasonable Nuts have noticed that people who spread their non-career interests this singularly tend toward the rabid end of the fanatic spectrum. Given this very reliable hypothesis, I point your attention to a salient passage from an article posted today:

Alito isn't using his time to just talk about weighty constitutional issues. He also found time to get into a little baseball talk last week with former Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Jim Bunning, now a Republican senator from Kentucky.

Bunning said Tuesday that Alito had told him how he had been a lifelong fan of the club. In fact, a 14-year-old Alito watched the 1964 Phillies collapse after having held first place in the National League for much of the summer, losing 10 straight games and missing the World Series.

Bunning finished that season with a 19-8 record and a 2.63 earned run average.

"He proceeded to tell me about the 1964 season and how we blew the pennant," Bunning said.

Perhaps nothing could easier drive a 14 year old baseball geek to the brink of insanity than the self-destructive last-minute slide of his home team. The psychological groundwork laid, the Reasonable Nuts are concerned with this "chance" encounter with Senator Bunning. We implore the Senator to beef up his security detail in the coming weeks.