-Christine Pelosi
Stock photo and news release courtesy of BNN News.
Retired reliever Felipe Cruz never made a lot of waves in the game of baseball. He was an okay pitcher. He never dogged it, but he wasn't renowned for his hustle either. He certainly didn't rack up the wins or saves or WAR that would make HOF voters take notice of him. In fact, if you didn't live in the greater Valencia area (where he spent his entire MBBA career playing for the Stars and still spends about half his time, when not in his homeland of Panama), you may well have never heard his name. But you're probably about to.
The journeyman hurler announced Sunday that he'll be taking his leadership skills and competitive nature to a new arena: politics. That's right: Felipe Cruz is throwing his hat in the ring for the U.S. House of Representatives. While the next House elections won't be called until 2024, Cruz wanted to begin laying the groundwork today. Interestingly, Cruz announced his run not in the district he will seek to represent (he has not announced a location yet, although it will presumably be one of California's 53 districts); in fact, he didn't even announce his race within the United States at all. The Panamanian native declared his intention to seek American office in his hometown of Boqueron, Panama.
"My name is Felipe Cruz, and I am running for the United States House of Representatives! I hope to help lead this great nation into a new era of progress and possibility. Mark my words, friends, we will make America great again!"
Cruz's former teammates told reporters that the pitcher had always been very politically active, and loved nothing more than following elections in his spare time. While none of them could tell us much about his political beliefs (and Cruz himself was awfully vague in his campaign announcement), few of them were surprised to hear that he had announced a campaign.
What is unclear is whether Felipe Cruz actually meets the qualifications to seek this office. While the Constitution does not place any "natural born" limits on House candidates (as it does with regard to the Presidency), it does require that anyone seeking office must have been a citizen of the United States of America for at least seven years. Early attempts to confirm that Felipe Cruz holds American citizenship at all has been inconclusive, although we hope to uncover further details as the story unfolds. The thirty-three year-old does, at least, meet the minimum age requirement (25) and the residency requirement (assuming he does, in fact, run for office in the state of California).
I spoke with political expert Gerry Mander, PhD. about Cruz's chances. "It's all very unorthodox, of course... announcing your intention to run while in another country altogether. And of course, it's not at all clear that Cruz is even a citizen of this country. It wouldn't be the first time a professional athlete made the jump to electoral politics, but there are certainly some hurdles."
Mander also noted it was unlikely that the Cruz campaign would be able to successfully have the citizenship requirement amended from the American constitution by the time of the 2024 race, and suggested the possibility that this was simply a case of an OOTP bug, and the game engine had just not recognized the fact that Cruz was, in fact, Panamanian.
