Rep. Dennis Ross on missing practice on day of baseball shooting: I’m regretful but grateful

That is, until he missed the last one, the only one most people will remember, when Majority Whip Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La. — Ross’ friend and colleague — was critically injured by a stranger with a rifle.

“I’ve been going out there for six years,” said Ross, R-Fla., in an interview Thursday night with the Washington Examiner at Nationals Park, where Republicans and Democrats maintained the century-old tradition of playing the Congressional Baseball Game. “The last practice was the one day I didn’t make it because of a hamstring pull. Otherwise, I would have been there. My feelings are regrets for not being there, but a bigger feeling of gratitude for not being there.”

Since the summer of 2014, Ross has served under Scalise as senior deputy majority whip.

On their baseball team, Ross plays left field, farther away from the action than Scalise, who was shot at Wednesday morning’s practice in Alexandria, Va., as he occupied his customary second base.

When Ross wasn’t catching fly balls from the outfield, he would often look around Simpson Park, the Republican baseball team’s practice facility, and think of how isolated the players were.

“If you go out there and look at the field, there is only one way in — that’s through the first base dugout,” Ross said. “Everywhere else is locked. And when you are out there playing left field, there is no way out. It was just amazing that God was with with us when this whole thing transpired. Evil has its day, but we were very fortunate.”

Ross is not sure how he would have reacted to the shooting had he been there. James Hodgkinson, an out-of-towner from Illinois, is the suspected shooter who invaded Simpson Park, targeting the Republicans playing baseball there, wounding Scalise and three others with gunfire before being shot dead by police.

“These guys, my teammates, rose to the occasion,” Ross said. “They handled it. They didn’t panic. They triaged the wounded. I can’t imagine … I don’t know how I would’ve reacted. But I am so glad that those who were there reacted the way they did and in a unified fashion.”

As Scalise is still in critical condition after another surgery at a Washington hospital Thursday night, Ross was set to return to left field, his hamstring healed enough to play after plenty of icing.

Ross had low expectations for his own play.

“I’m not sure if I will be in the lineup; they never tell me, Ross said.

But he had high hopes for what being present at the sporting event Scalise loves could mean for the future.

“This game is about Steve,” Ross said. “We, as Congress, have to lead by example. We can’t rely on the press; we can’t rely on our special interest groups. We have to rely on us to exhibit the level of civil discourse that is necessary in order to effectuate positive change in this country. We need to have constant reminders of what happened. The wounds that Steve Scalise and the police officers and others will carry with them the rest of their lives will be a constant reminder for us that we have to have civility, but we also can’t ever let our guard down.”