Roy Blunt: “``Them apples'' as in the Big Apple? Are those the apples we are talking about? I start in the spring going to minor…”

“``Them apples'' as in the Big Apple? Are those the apples we are talking about? I start in the spring going to minor league games and to major league games, but as we go back and forth across the border here, there is no bigger, more dedicated baseball fan in the Senate than Senator McCaskill. If you want to know who is playing, what position they are playing, what their batting average is likely to be, this is always a good way to find out, and I look forward to hearing what she has to say about the Royals. Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, listen, I am lucky to be from Missouri because I love baseball. I love sports. I was raised by a great uncle who was like my grandfather and made me go out to the backyard every night in the summer. I even remember he had a small burgundy transistor radio. I would lie on a blanket, he would sit in a lawn chair, and he would hush me--hush me--when important parts of the game came on. He was a big Cardinals fan. I was raised as a Cardinals fan. I spent time in Kansas City early in my career. In fact, I was in Kansas City during the 1980s, the last time that Kansas City won the World Series. Some people have the nerve to call our part of the world flyover country but not when it comes to baseball. For 4 of the last 5 years, teams who play ball in the middle of America with lower payrolls and with smaller media markets have made it to the World Series, and for 2 of those last 5 years, the world has seen a different kind of ball team.…”