Eugene Joseph McCarthy, 1916-2005

"But what a footnote!"

An intellectual forebear of the Vegacura, he saw the convergence of baseball and politics early.

Baseball was his metaphor for politics and life. "We know Nixon's stuff," he said well before Mr. Nixon resigned in disgrace from the presidency. "He's got a slider. And he's thrown a spitter so many years he's got seniority rights on it."

His contrariness seemed to do more self-inflicted wounding than otherwise, especially after the 1968 "Children's Crusade," but we could sure use someone else willing to run "against the powers of the presidency." And we could sure use another man, as he said in nominating Adlai Stevenson at the 1960 Democratic Convention, who will make "us all proud to be Democrats."