Give me baseball over politics With the playoffs in full swing, baseball in any October is almost guaranteed to thrill the blood and this year is no exception. Presidential politics this October, on the other hand, had curdled it. But an injection of fresh plasma at Tuesday's debate might have given it a boost. I first saw a presidential election campaign and baseball juxtaposed in 1964, when living in California. The Republicans held their convention at the Cow Palace in San Francisco, while down the road in windy Candlestick Park the Giants strutted on their diamond. I came away much more impressed by the arts and subtleties of Willie Mays, Juan Marichal and Willie McCovey than the raucous shock troopers who crowned Barry Goldwater. At least on Tuesday night, the two were in more even balance. In Detroit, a marvellous old school pitcher, the Tigers" Justin Verlander, who, like Marichal likes to finish what he starts, throttled the mighty New York Yankees, whose legion of superstars were either out of action through injury or in a deep batting funk. On Long Island Barack Obama, comatose during the first play-off debate with Mitt Romney, came out firing fastballs and wicked curves, comfortable in his skin once more. Their series is not over by a long chalk - and his opponent swung hard and often himself - but at least the president did not seem to be in need of a relief pitcher, like vice-president Joe Biden, to save the side in the final innings. Before that night, baseball had been much the more attractive proposition. While the politicians wallowed in negative advertising and grubbed for money, serving only to fill the media's depleted coffers, the men in pyjamas were inspirational. There were my beloved Washington Nationals rising from their cold water flat in the basement to the luxurious penthouse heights of the best record in the whole sport, becoming the first Washington side to make the play-offs since 1933. They so nearly advanced further, too, twice being within a single strike of besting the barbarian horde known as the St Louis Cardinals in the deciding game. Life was on hold when they played and when they went down to defeat it was a case of draining the bottle, kicking the cat and a diet of birdseed for a week. So it was for the six other play-off teams, each series going the distance for the first time, with Verlander of Detroit finally slaying the "Moneyball" Oakland dragons known as the Athletics. But there was no comparable joy in the Mudville of politics. Mr Romney, having travelled to the far reaches of the right to secure his base, promptly took the express train to the middle, where the few swing voters remaining are supposed to live. I think I saw one in the parking lot of the La Plata Safeway the other day, but she ran away and hid. He seemed to assume that, in this age of short attention spans, nobody would notice that he contradicted previous positions almost daily. A robust performance in the first debate gave him reason to hope he might be right. So did the almost complete absence of carping from the normally noisy rightwing. This demonstrated that although they might not trust or love their candidate, they want Mr Obama out far more and are content to wait to mould Mitt once he is in office. Meanwhile the Obama magic of 2008 seemed to have been expropriated by Voldemort. Some attributed this to the cares of office. He inherited enough problems to weigh anybody down and has been frustrated by gridlock in Washington to the point that his distaste for politics has sometimes been almost palpable. One prominent blogger suggested after the first debate that it was almost as if he did not want to be president any more. That might, but only might, have been dispelled by his slugging of the ball on Tuesday night, to be repeated, he would hope, at the pair's final encounter next week. That debate is supposed to be about foreign policy, which does not normally stir the electorate's blood, but it would still be nice if either man could come up with the "vision thing" about the future. That would mean a change from harping, as Mr Romney does, on the virtues of small businesses, or, as is Mr Obama's tendency, on the imperative of helping the middle class. An election ought to be about more than talking points. There is another necessary comparison between baseball and politics. By the end of October, the sport will crown a World Series champion. It is the definitive end, the exclamation point, to a long season, after which it is in the record books and brooks no argument. But on November 6 there may be no such satisfactory conclusion. There may or may not be a new president, but in either case his mandate may not be worth much as he peers down the abyss of the fiscal cliff. Moreover, on present form, the composition of this dysfunctional Congress will not change decisively, regardless of which party controls the two houses. To which there is only one answer - Justin Verlander for president.