Picture a typical politician in Washington. What do you see? Probably a senator speaking dryly from a podium to the Senate chamber or performing hammily from a rounded table at a committee hearing. Maybe a House member, safely stowed away in his or her office, meeting with a group of earnest schoolchildren — or clandestinely with a scurrilous lobbyist. Or perhaps the State of the Union, with most of Congress and the Supreme Court politely (if often grudgingly) seated to listen to the president’s latest rhetoric. These are some of the more predictable trappings of our politics, right up there with bitter partisan acrimony and low congressional approval ratings.
What you probably don’t picture are senators out for a jog. Or members of the House slugging away at baseball pitches or scurrying up and down a soccer field. As indeed, you should not: These are not exactly normal occurrences, some members excepted. But three times a year, at three separate events, some of the most notable names in our politics convene to do these very things, often with considerable crowds. What’s more, those involved with these events think these athletic happenings might be an important way not just to relax partisan tensions but also to help bring about a healthier nation.
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The most well-known example of such activities is the Congressional Baseball Game, typically held in June and now run by Congressional Sports for Charity, a 501(c)(3). It is as it sounds: a straightforward contest of America’s favorite pastime between Democrats and Republicans. The first game was held in 1909 and organized by Pennsylvania Rep. John Tener, a former professional baseball player. It was held erratically thereafter and was canceled for a few years because House Speaker Sam Rayburn deemed it too physical. Since 1962, however, the only off year for the game has been 2020, the COVID year.
The respective teams do take it seriously as a sporting contest. Of the players he handled as a longtime team manager, former Democratic House member Mike Doyle said that “they all want to play and some have more talent than others,” whereas he “always played to win,” adding that “it’s not Little League and everyone doesn’t get to play two innings.” On the Republican side, Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) emphasized the regimen imposed by coach Roger Williams, a former professional baseball player: practices starting March 1 from 5:45-7 p.m. every day Congress is in session, scrimmages with local teams. But both teams see much more to the game than that. For former Texas Republican Kevin Brady, the game was more than a tradition: “It plays an important role in bringing people together. ... I made great friends in both dugouts, in some cases lifelong friends.”
On June 14, 2017, Wenstrup experienced firsthand a particularly powerful demonstration of the “spirit of bipartisanship” he says marks the game. That year, a deranged Bernie Sanders supporter opened fire on a Republican practice, seriously wounding Steve Scalise (R-LA), then majority whip. Wenstrup, who attended the practice, recalls that Cedric Richmond, then a Democratic representative from the same state, was one of the first people to check on Scalise in the hospital. It was a vivid demonstration of what then-Speaker Paul Ryan said on the House floor the same day: “An attack on one of us is an attack on all of us.” The bipartisan spirit shows up in smaller ways too: At this year’s game, when Republican pitcher August Pfluger (TX) accidentally struck at-bat Democrat Don Davis (NC), what might in a typical baseball game lead to a brawl led instead to a hug.
For less hand-eye-oriented members, there’s the American Council of Life Insurers’s Capital Challenge, a 3-mile team race held in mid-May at Anacostia Park. Also open to congressional staff, executive- and judicial-branch employees, and journalists, the race was founded in 1981 by Jeff Darman, who has served as organizer ever since. A Coast Guard veteran from Rhode Island, Darman had a variety of Washington-area jobs (and a stint working for the U.S. ambassador to Australia) and then came to a sudden realization just before turning 30: He was out of shape. Hoping, partly for his own benefit, to combine fitness and politics, he came up with the idea for the race and secured Nike as a sponsor. (ACLI subsequently took over.)
But in 1981, he had no idea if it would take off. “Of course the first year, you didn’t know if anybody would come or what would happen,” he says. But he managed to get about 350 people, including Indiana Sen. Dick Lugar, who participated every year until 2012. Lugar was one of various entries across the Washington spectrum who have run the race over the years. Lugar’s 30-something chief of staff Mitch Daniels raced in 1981 and 1982, then returned in 2003 when in the Bush White House. Al Gore ran as a senator and even as vice president. The V-Toes, a Reagan White House team in 1985, included Hugh Hewitt (now a talk radio show host), John Roberts (now a Supreme Court justice), and Pat Buchanan (a mainstay of The McLaughlin Group). The current congressional standouts are Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), a longtime fixture of the race (a dedicated triathlete, she has been participating since her days in the House), and Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), who claims to have scared former regular Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) from participating after having “vanquished” (his word) him in 2017. Gallagher, a former Marine officer who was shocked into shape by the experience, enjoys the fitness accountability the annual race provides. He also finds it lessens partisan tensions. “A little bit of competitive sports in Congress fosters camaraderie, allows you to develop relationships,” Gallagher says. “I think particularly in the modern Congress, where because people just don’t move their families here, there’s never a forum to interact, to get to know each other as human beings. Sports, these annual events, provides one such forum.”
Each year, in addition to individual and team medals, there are fiercely competitive contests for best team names — and worst (this year’s winner: Memory Laps, AARP Magazine’s team). Another inside joke of the day: The portable restrooms, of which Darman brags the race has more per capita than any other race, are “labeled” by occupation and even political leaning. In the early days of the race, he says, people would line up at the “correct” bathroom and wait, even with an empty line at another.
One of the newest sporting events in which members can participate is the Congressional Soccer Match. Co-sponsored by the U.S. Soccer Foundation and the Congressional Soccer Caucus, the game was started in 2015 and draws a mix of House members, staffers, and pros (the lattermost of whom typically outlast the former two as it drags on). Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), a longtime soccer enthusiast, says, “It’s fun to have the Republican vs. Democrat competition,” both in its own right and because of the political comity it induces. “That’s definitely one of the purposes of it,” he says. “We should do more stuff like that. The game is just one way to do that. There’s a lot of bipartisan prayer groups, things like that. The more we do things like that, the better.”
These events — and others like them, including the Congressional Women's Softball Game (started in 2009) and the Congressional Football Game (started in 2004) — may not take place in the marble halls of the Capitol or along the labyrinthine hallways of congressional office buildings. But if their participants’ experience is any indication, they may be able to do things for our politics, and for our nation as a whole, than any bill, hearing, or speech ever could. So, for the good of the country, let them play on.
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Jack Butler is the submissions editor of National Review Online.