The Zero Game

She doesn’t get it. Sure, it’s a vote for baseball, but it isn’t just any vote. It actually dates back to 1922, when the Supreme Court ruled that baseball was a sport – not a business – and therefore was allowed a special exemption from antitrust rules. Football, basketball, all the rest have to comply – but baseball, the Supreme Court decided, was special. Today, Congress is trying to strengthen that exemption, giving owners more control over how big the league gets. For Congress, it’s a relatively simple vote: If you’re from a state with a baseball team, you vote for baseball (even the Reps from rural New York don’t dare vote against the Yankees). If you’re from a state without a team – or from a district that wants a team, like Charlotte or Jacksonville – you vote against it.

When you do the math – and account for political favors by powerful owners – that leaves a clear majority voting for the bill, and a maximum of 100 Members voting against it – 105 if they’re lucky. But right now, there’s someone in the Capitol who thinks he can get 110 nays. There’s no way, Harris and I decided. That’s why we bet against it.

“We all ready to hit some issues?” Trish asks, still plowing her way through the Conference list. In the next ten minutes, we allocate three million to repair the seawall on Ellis Island, two and a half million to renovate the steps on the Jefferson Memorial, and thirteen million to do a structural upgrade on the bicycle trail and recreation area next to the Golden Gate Bridge. No one puts up much of a fight. Like baseball – you don’t vote against the good stuff.

My pager once again dances in my pocket. Like before, I read it under the table. 97, Harris’s message says.

I can’t believe they’re getting this far. Of course, that’s the fun of playing the game.

In fact, as Harris explained it when he first extended the invitation, the game itself started years ago as a practical joke. As the story goes, a junior Senate staffer was bitching about picking up a Senator’s dry cleaning, so to make him feel better, his buddy on staff snuck the words dry cleaning into a draft of the Senator’s next speech:… although sometimes regarded as dry, cleaning our environment should clearly be a top priority... It was always meant to be a cheap gag – something that’d be taken out before the speech was given. Then one of the staffers dared the other to keep it in.

“I’ll do it,” the staffer threatened.

“No, you won’t,” his friend shot back.

“Wanna bet?”

Right there, the game was born. And that afternoon, the distinguished Senator strolled onto C-SPAN and told the entire nation about the importance of “dry, cleaning.”

In the beginning, they always kept it to small stuff: hidden phrases in an op-ed, an acronym in a commencement speech. Then it got bigger. A few years ago, on the Senate Floor, a Senator who was searching for his handkerchief reached into his jacket pocket and proceeded to wipe his forehead with a pair of women’s silk panties. He quickly laughed it off as an honest mistake made by his laundry service. But it wasn’t an accident.

That was the first time the game broke the envelope – and what caused the organizers to create the current rules. These days, it’s simple: The bills we bet on are ones where the outcome’s clearly decided. A few months back, the Clean Diamond Act passed by a vote of 408 to 6; last week, the Hurricane Shelters Act passed by 401 to 10; and today, the Baseball for America Act was expected to pass by approximately 300 to 100. A clear landslide. And the perfect bill to play on.

When I was in high school, we used to try to guess if Jennifer Luftig would be wearing a bra. In grad school, we made bingo cards with the names of the kids who talked the most, then waited for them to open their mouths. We’ve all played our games. Can you get twelve more votes? Can you get the Vermont Congressmen to vote against it? Can you get the nays up to 110, even when 100 is all that’s reasonably possible? Politics has always been called a game for grown-ups. So why is anyone surprised people would gamble on it?