Opinion : How baseball could cure Crimean Spring Fever

Get out a map of Iowa.

See Vinton?

Draw a line that runs straight south, from Minnesota to Missouri through Vinton.

Look at everything to the right. That’s about 10,000 square miles; about 1/5 of the total size of Iowa.

That is roughly the size of a peninsula that up to a few weeks ago, only Jeopardy contestants might know: Crimea.

There’s lots of hand-wringing over this tiny peninsula after the residents there reacted to a corrupt, violent leader who rejected a trade deal with Western European countries and then used violence against those protests.

After all this nonsense, the people of Crimea – just under 2 million, of whom 60 percent are Russian – voted overwhelmingly (97 percent) to leave the Ukraine and join Russia.

Joining Russia is not a decision I would make.

And it’s not a decision that makes westerners feel comfortable, especially with a Super Bowl Ring-stealing screwball like Putin in charge of Russia.

There is, naturally plenty of hand-wringing in government and the media over this “crisis.”

“Washington must also try to keep the crisis from careening dangerously out of control,” warned the AFP news service.

Nah.

While we should be paying attention to Russia and Putin’s apparent Cold War mentality, we also should have been paying enough attention to know that Crimeans are not choosing between East and West. They are choosing between two incompetent, corrupt, Eastern governments.

When 97 percent of the people want to do something, that drastic concerning their government there’s probably a reason. And the main reason is: They don’t have baseball. Like just about every other country in the world where there is unrest, Crimea has virtually no baseball. I have on more than one occasion documented the link between baseball and world peace. If Secretary of State John Kerry wants to make sure the Crimeans keep from bolstering Russia, he first must help establish America’s Pastime thee.

So, pay attention to Crimea, but don’t let it distract you from the important issues of this time of the year, like the opening of seasonal ice cream shops – or Opening Day of baseball season (which actually starts this weekend, in Australia, before American fans can watch the first regular-season game on March 30).