Team of the Week: The Capitalist Tools

June 5, 7:01 pm by merlisa

With the public perception that conservatives are growing older, it’s fitting that the Capitalist Tools field a squad in which most of the players are over 35.

Still, these Tools manage to stay ahead of the Senate League competition, playing to a combined 25-4 record (including playoffs and a runner-up finish to the RBIs of Texas) in their three seasons in the league.

“Not too shabby for a bunch of older players,” said Brian Darling, director of Senate Relations for the Heritage Foundation and a Capitalist Tools coach.

The team actually plays in two leagues — dividing in half to play as a second incarnation of the Tools and as the Supply Sliders in the Think Tank League, where the motto is “Smart People Playing (poorly)” but the Tools have dominated the competition.

“We’re some old guys,” said Darling. “People see us coming and laugh, thinking they are going to beat us pretty bad because we’re so old. We get the last laugh.”

Darling said most Senate League teams are packed with players in their 20s, his age when he first played softball as an intern in the late 1980s. “We have experience,” he said. Last week the Tools were short two outfielders and still won a game.

Todd Thurman, online marketing manager for the Heritage Foundation and the team’s left fielder, said the key to the Tools’ success has been keeping the core intact and staying in touch with players, even after they leave the foundation. “We’ve been together for a while. We know how each other plays,” he said.

Darling said everyone at the Heritage Foundation takes softball seriously. Darling reportedly sent the following e-mail after a Think Tank League loss: “Although we did not have as many recorded runs as the Center for American Progress in the game last night, we demand a recount of the final score and if the recount does not come out as expected, we petition the Department of Treasury to bail us out of this loss with some needed runs. We are too big to fail.”

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