Broward Politics: Local Consultant Managed Congressional Baseball Team

 

BY BUDDY NEVINS

 

 

Long before David Brown was one of the go-to Broward County campaign managers, he managed the Democratic Congressional Baseball Team.

The year was 1975 and Brown still had a lot of hair. That’s him on the left out of uniform.

Speaker of the House Carl Albert is in a suit in the front row.

U. S. Rep. Paul Tsongas, the Massachusetts Democrat who later became a senator and ran for president, is second from the right in the front row wearing glasses. Tsongas won seven states in the 1992 Democratic primaries eventually losing the nomination to Bill Clinton.  

Rev. Walter Fauntroy, a well-known civil rights leader, was the Democratic delegate of Washington, D.C. in the House.  Just to the right of Tsongas in the front row, Fauntroy was arrested last year when he returned to the United States after years on the run from a bad check charge.

Brown was Chief Legislative Assistant for Dan Rostenkowski, the Illinois Democrat and powerful head of the House Ways and Means Committee for over 13 years.  Long after Brown left Washington, Rostenkowski’s career ended after being accused of corruption — including padding federal payrolls with no-show employees, using Congressional funds for his personal use and witness tampering.

“The Democratic Congressional Baseball Team practiced at a field in SE D.C. not far from the House Office Buildings. We practiced, as I recall, twice-a-week at 7am to 8am for the first three weeks and three times-a-week the last three weeks before a 4 or 5 inning twilight (Democrats versus Republicans) game at Baltimore Orioles Stadium,” Brown recalled in an e-mail.

Former Senator and Vice President Joe Biden was on the team, but is not in the picture below, Brown wrote.

“Biden was the hotdog of the team during practice. He liked charging in on a ball hit to shallow left. On game day it had rained most of the morning and I warned him that if he charged in on a short fly ball he needed to stay low because the outfield was wet AstroTurf and the ball would not pop up,” he wrote.

Biden forgot the lesson during the game against the Republicans.

“Of course, he did charge in on a short fly ball, didn’t remember to stay low and the ball went right through his legs. Fortunately, the Republican was a very show runner and stayed at first instead of trying for a double,” Brown remembered.

The Democrats won 3-2.  “First time Dems won in 12 years,” he wrote.



4 Responses to “Broward Politics: Local Consultant Managed Congressional Baseball Team”

  1. John Henry says:

    With congressional job approval polling in at 20%, who cares?????

  2. Susan says:

    One of the few consultants who doesn’t lobby. He’s a mensch.

  3. The Russians are coming! says:

    The Bernie Sanders inspired shooter who came out of left field had a Russian connection. He used not an Ar-15, not even an AK-47, but a Russian SKS 7.62X39 hunting rifle that like Bernie has been around since the 1940s

  4. Judy the Destroyer says:

    Ms Stern has turned on many who were once her purported “best friends” and has found people to run against them when she did not get her way. The wreckage she has left runs a wide swath through the County over many years. I have seen it first hand and it is really sad. It is an underreported story. Many who have sold their soul to her have paid a terrible price and regretted it. You know what they say about Karma.