Shadow Government

A front-row seat to the Republicans' debate over foreign policy, including their critique of the Biden administration.

The IPhone rocks my world (baseball edition)

By Christian Brose Most of what goes on here at Shadow Government is pretty serious, policy-laden stuff. So every now and then I feel compelled to lighten the mood just a bit. If that’s not your thing, quit reading now. One of my best days at the State Department was when I realized that the ...

By Christian Brose

Most of what goes on here at Shadow Government is pretty serious, policy-laden stuff. So every now and then I feel compelled to lighten the mood just a bit. If that’s not your thing, quit reading now.

One of my best days at the State Department was when I realized that the television in my office got ESPN. Granted, I had the same cable package as everyone else in the building, and I’d been watching it for two years or so at that point. I’d been fooled by the fact that all of the news channels were in the low numbers, and as you flipped upwards beyond there, it was just channel after channel of Russian, and Arabic, and Japanese, and other foreign media. So I gave up and assumed that beyond, say, channel 25, there be monsters. Much time passed, and one day I walked into a colleague’s office, and he was watching ESPN (for all of you reading this at State, it’s sweet, sweet channel 46). From then on, I’d watch SportsCenter every morning out of the corner of my eye. Back, to back, to back. For hours. Why? Because I could. This may not have always boosted productivity, but it sure helped at times with morale.

I say all of this as prelude to help you understand how I am nearly wetting my pants with giddy excitement over the news that Major League Baseball began streaming live games onto my IPhone this afternoon. I about fell out of my chair when I read this yesterday. A friend and I had just spent a few hours last weekend drinking beer and watching baseball and talking about how amazing it will be one day to inhabit a fabulous, futuristic world of flux capacitors and dehydrated pizzas and live baseball games streamed onto our IPhones. Well, folks, the future is here, and eats battery power like nobody’s business.

My life is over. Or maybe it’s just beginning. Either way, from now on, if ever you’re wondering why a day goes by and my blogging is light, the odds are better than average that it’s because I am watching live baseball in the palm of my hand.

Go Phils! (Take that Drezner…)

Christian Brose is a senior editor at Foreign Policy. He served as chief speechwriter and policy advisor for U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice from 2005 to 2008, and as speechwriter for former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell from 2004 to 2005.

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