Choi at the Bat

I’m sure they’ll fix this on the main site, so I’m pasting a bit of it here for posterity. In the middle of Erica Harbatkin's coverage of the Edison election results in the Home News Tribune (mayor Jun Choi’s handpicked slate of newcomers won), something strange happens. Take a look:

EDISON — Mayor Jun Choi's slate of candidates won the Democratic council primary on Tuesday, giving the mayor control of the township's divided Democratic party.

Choi's Edison Democratic Party slate, which was full of political newcomers handpicked by the mayor, beat out the incumbents on the council and a third ticket headed by former Councilman Bill Stephens for the Democratic Party line in the November General Election.

The winning slate is composed of Washington Elementary School Principal AnnMarie Griffin-Ussak; former Edison boys baseball coach Wayne Mascola; Edison Township Education Foundation founder and President Melissa Perilstein; and Sudhanshu Prasad, an internal-medicine specialist and former chairman of JFK Medical Center's Department of Medicine.

Official numbers were not available Tuesday night because District 26 had a zero tally sheet, but results without those numbers had Griffin-Ussak with 3,607 votes, Perilstein with 3,486, Prasad with 3,500 and Mascola with 3,389.

"We started this movement two years ago and onto the diamond for the top of the sixth. But Randolph, which was down to its final strike in the sectional semifinal on May 29 and came-from-behind to win the sectional final, turned four hits, including a triple and two doubles, two walks and an Edison error into six runs.

HUH?

I follow American politics, so I’m no stranger to the labored sports metaphor. But it’s usually not this long. Sure, there’s a baseball coach among the winners, but Jack Kemp didn’t talk about football this much.

Let’s continue, shall we?

Senior catcher Rob Kral, who homered four times in Friday's sectional final, hit a grand slam in the top of the seventh for Randolph (23-7) to conclude the scoring. Winning pitcher Steve Zavala (13-1) homered in the first at bat of the game and went 3-for-4 with four runs and three RBIs to help fuel the Morris County school's 14-hit attack…

And it goes on for three more paragraphs, before resuming the election coverage.

Um… go Eagles? And congratulations, councilmen-elect?

I’d prefer a few more checks and balances in my soup, but I have hope that Mayor Choi and his handpicked team of councilmen govern responsibly, and don’t run on a pop fly unless there are already two outs.

Rob

UPDATE: As expected, the story has been fixed.