Bernie Sanders turns 82, slaughters grandson’s MLB dreams

He’s not the only socialist to play America’s game.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) celebrated his 82nd birthday on Friday by slaughtering his grandson’s dreams of Major League Baseball fame.

The wife of the far-left senator shared a video on X, formerly known as Twitter, of Sanders slinging a pitch straight into the kid’s strike zone — and immediately cheering after he caught the hit to send him back to the dugout, much to his young grandson’s chagrin.

“Happy Birthday Bernie!! Best husband, father and grandfather over all these years!” Jane O’Meara Sanders captioned the post showing the pair enjoying the last days of summer together.

This isn’t the first time the aging Democratic socialist has surprised Americans with his athletic prowess.

In February 2016, Sanders took time out from his presidential campaign to shoot hoops with his sons and grandchildren in New Hampshire.

Hours later, he was declared the overwhelming winner of the Democratic primary in the Granite State, trouncing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton 60% to 39% in all precincts.

Sanders said in a victory speech at the time that his primary performance would send a “message that will echo from Wall Street to Washington” that “the government of our great country belongs to all of the people and not just a handful of wealthy campaign contributors and their super PACs.”

He went on to lose the Democratic nomination to Clinton, who claimed 2,842 delegates to the 1,865 nabbed by Sanders.

Former President Donald Trump later defeated Clinton in the general election with an electoral college count of 304 to 227.

Though in recent years he has failed at congressional reform of the MLB’s antitrust exemption, Sanders expressed warm regard for at least one baseball player who later became a world leader: Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.

During his run for the Democratic nomination in 2020, the Vermont senator said he did not support Castro’s authoritarian leanings but that it was “unfair to simply say everything is bad” about the Cuban regime.

“When Fidel Castro came into office, you know what he did? He had a massive literacy program. Is that a bad thing? Even though Fidel Castro did it?” he told Anderson Cooper during an interview on CBS News’ “60 Minutes.”

Castro, who played ball at the University of Havana, cheered for the US-affiliated minor league team the Havana Sugar Kings before and after he seized power in Cuba and was apparently a powerful pitcher himself, according to NBC Sports.

As leader of his pickup team Los Barbudos, “The Bearded Ones,” Castro also struck out two batters on the anniversary of his storming of the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba, launching a revolution against Fulgencio Batista.

The crowd reportedly celebrated the bearded dictator’s performance that night by firing their guns into the air, inflicting minor injuries on a coach and another player.

A mayor of Burlington, Sanders helped bring a minor league team back to his city, which ended up winning several league championships and sent players Ken Griffey, Jr. and Barry Larkin on to the major leagues.