Bush reminisces about baseball days during Waseda lecture

I'm surprised the frat boy was sober enough to see the ball back in the day. Better that he sticks to baseball though....

Well I'm glad he still enjoys baseball.

lol, his advisors have told him not to mention politics

Plenty of fans yelled at him when the Rangers were doing poorly, he said. “That’s part of sports. I never took it personally.”

It's part of politics too, and he never took the outcries personally when he stole from the poor to give to the rich, invaded a country that was no threat to the US, but which caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands, etc. And oh yes, he was a lousy baseball executive as well. Failure dogs the man at every turn. He even makes Taro Aso look smart.

"Make sure the stadium has a pleasant environment."

Nippon Professional Baseball has never done enough to provide fans with a relaxing environment to watch a baseball game. Most of the stadiums in Japan are poor facilities compared to what is offered in the U.S.

Bush had a less than stellar history as a baseball executive, he being remembered for one of the worst player trades in history.

I can't imagine anyone stupid enough to pay money to see this guy...

Good to see Bush around.

Nippon Professional Baseball has never done enough to provide fans with a relaxing environment to watch a baseball game. Most of the stadiums in Japan are poor facilities compared to what is offered in the U.S.

Eh, there's alot of nice stadiums in Japan. K-stadium Miyagi, Zoom-zoom, and Koshien are genuinely nice places to watch a game, and Yokohama and Chiba Marine are great when the sun is shining on a nice Saturday.

I would have loved to see Bush in the ouendan for one of the games, maybe dressed like a tiger in Koshien or bouncing madly in Chiba...

This world is despicable and the Bushes knew it from the very beginning. There are people who may not agree with me politically but the fact is irrefutable; George W. Bush is a war criminal! Now he's walking around giving lectures and I assume being paid for it. What a twisted world we live and I'm ashamed of the Japanese that they would invite him.

mindovermatter said:

I can't imagine anyone stupid enough to pay money to see this guy...

Well I can't imagine anyone being stupid enough to listen to his advice. He's failed at everything he's ever attempted and if it wasn't for daddy deep pockets, he would probably be behind bars.

He won the votes of US citizens two times! He started two wars against all objections whether domestic and worldwide! And he kept saying funny things for 8 long years! I say he acted strongly and was successful for what he stood up for! And he couldn't run for a third term, could he? ;-)

Bush, a former part-owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team, offered no assessment of choices facing his successor on Afghanistan, climate change or the economy.

Guess he didn't entertain them with the story of just how he became a part-owner of the Rangers with 500 grand of borrowed money and got an given an extra 10% ownership stake as a gift for free. No silver spoon for this boy!!!! Or how his baseball "career" was designed by his puppeteers to give him an appearance of a legitimate businessman, seeing as it would have been a little difficult to become governor of Texas with a resume of drunken fratboy and bankrupt oilman.

No he probably didn't mention any of that!

Did they ask him how he feels about his name being a "-suru verb" for upchucking? It was all the rage after his dad blew chunks on Nakasone.

George W. Bush is a war criminal! Now he's walking around giving lectures and I assume being paid for it. What a twisted world we live and I'm ashamed of the Japanese that they would invite him.

Absolutely. Why on earth would they give him an audience? I would think he'd be on the run like Polanski

Thank goodness Japan is such a safety country that even a warmonger like W can be greeted with some modicum of civility. He probably can't appear in public again in the U.S. without being spat at. What's the equivalent in Japan of tossing your shoe at his noggin (as some brave soul did in the Middle East)?

talk about a good candidate for a beanball...

BUSH ROCKS!

This is near ethereal in its absurdity. Can we now expect GWB to use his supposed baseball error in trading Sammy Sosa as some kind of blanket apology for all the massive missteps he made as president? And the thing is--that wasn't even a bad baseball decision. Harold Baines was a great hitter all the way into his twilight years, and Sammy Sosa was a scrawny runt at the time--no one knew he'd pump himself full of every steroid known to man. GWB's big mistake, the admission of which we're supposed to take as an example of his sage humility, wasn't even a mistake.

I wish I could have been there. Protesting and denouncing anything even tangentially related to george bush gives my pathetic life meaning.

Protesting and denouncing anything even tangentially related to george bush gives my pathetic life meaning.

As readers here know all too well, it is crass cynicism that gives your pathetic life meaning.

telecasterplayer

Bush Senior regurgitated on PM Miyazawa, not Nakasone.

"the warm reception he got at Waseda"

Heh.

“Problem is, it’s not that easy,” the former two-term president said. Plenty of fans yelled at him when the Rangers were doing poorly, he said. “That’s part of sports. I never took it personally.”

There's something his WH replacement needs to learn: Don't take it personally. I remember when Bush was asked about the anti-war protestors in front of the White House. He replied that it was their right to protest and it was good they were exercising that right. Obama, by contrast, ignored the anti-tax protestors, even pretending he didn't know the protests were happening. Then he turns around and attacks FoxNews. People with such thin skin shouldn't seek out positions like President of the United States, no matter how strong their narcissism.