Huckabee, like America, loves George Brett

Frankly, Mike Huckabee, what with his radical social conservatism and God-bent fervor, strikes us as a bit cuckoo, but he seems likable enough and, well, let's just say when he opened his concession speech last night with a tribute to George Brett -- yes, the George Brett -- he had our full attention.



Don't worry, that's an elided two-minute version of his speech, not the three-hour one he actually gave (it seemed like three hours, anyway). If you're still not interested in watching though, here's a transcript:

MIKE HUCKABEE: Thank you very much.

Well, George Brett was one of the greatest baseball players of all time. And in his career for the Kansas City Royals, he was asked, when he was nearing the end of his career, how he wanted his last play in the major leagues to go. Well, everyone assumed that he would say that he wanted to hit a grand slam in the bottom of the ninth to win a game, perhaps even a World Series. He surprised all of the sportswriters, because what he said was, "I want my last play at bat to be that I hit an easy, just one bounce to the second baseman, and they throw me out at first. But I was running as hard as I could toward the bag when they got me."

And he said, "Because I want it to be said of George Brett that, no matter what, he played his best game, he gave it his best, all the way to the very end." And he certainly did just that.

POSTSCRIPT: From the "I can't believe I'm actually mentioning this, it must be late and past my bedtime" department: the first comment on that YouTube video belongs to me, and it was my first-ever comment on YouTube. This is nothing to be proud of at all. In fact, I'm already ashamed I've mentioned this.