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Jim Bunning: The Definition Of An Old Curmudgeon

Anybody care what former pitcher and current Kentucky Senator Jim Bunning has to say about Stephen Strasburg missing his start on Tuesday? No? I didn't think so.

But that didn't stop him from giving his two cents anyway.

"Five-hundred twenty starts, I never refused the ball," Bunning, a Kentucky senator who hurled a perfect game in 1964 and struck out 2,855 batters in his Major League career, told POLITICO. "What a joke!" 

Then this hilarious little piece of pantomime.

"My arm!" Bunning sarcastically cried as he pretended to clutch his shoulder in the Capitol’s Statuary Hall.

I could go on for hundreds of words about how this is a different time, that pitchers don't pitch the way they used to anymore and that the stakes are different considering Strasburg makes millions of dollars and Bunning made, literally, peanuts, but you, like everyone other than Jim Bunning, already know that.

It must be noted, that Bunning wasn't in attendance when the Senate passed the health care reform bill last Christmas Eve, citing family reasons. He was the only senator to miss the historic vote. So he won't miss a start, but voting on one of the most important bills in recent memory? That's a different story.

(HT: Dan Steinberg).