If you’ve ever played an outdoor sport, you know firsthand the impact of distractions while you’re trying to perform at your best. For example, if you’re in the batter’s box during a friendly softball game or a hotly contested baseball game, nothing is more irritating and distracting than trying to ignore or swat that pesky fly buzzing around your face just as the pitcher is going into his windup.

You don’t know whether to swat at the bug and take your eye off of the pitcher – and possibly get hit in the head with the ball – or stay totally focused on the pitch and risk being bitten by some nasty, disease-infested bug that probably will curl up and die after injecting you or fly off to ruin some other unsuspecting player’s day.

What a choice: Stay focused and ignore the real-life distraction, or take your eye off of the prize – namely, trying to get a hit – and risk a swollen face after a sting to your noggin.

That outdoors dilemma succinctly helps to illustrate what Sen. Barack Obama, personally, and his campaign as a well-oiled machine, are up against with his defeat of Sen. Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination. Now that he is doing battle against Sen. John McCain and a Republican Party that pulls no punches and takes no prisoners, Sen. Obama must be well aware that his opponents number more than just Sen. McCain.

Obama is at bat, ready to swing a 36-ounce Louisville Slugger; ready to hit a home run to capture the presidency. He’s singularly focused on the pitcher with the wicked curve ball and the devastating slider. The pitcher who is not afraid to throw some chin music, as they call it in baseball, or a 95 mph brushback pitch to knock the senator off the plate and break his concentration.

That determined pitcher has a huge “R” on the front of his jersey and an even bigger “McCain” emblazoned on the back. He is his party’s star flamethrower, and his party hasn’t met a Democrat who they didn’t want to strike out on three pitches or intimidate with a fastball to the head to give liberal batters a little something to think about – something other than corporate windfall tax legislation and naming an urban affairs czar to direct precious federal resources to major cities that are populated by too many people who don’t look like most members of the “R” team.

As Obama stands tall in the batter’s box, intent on smashing a home run like he did in the Iowa caucuses, there’s a fly buzzing around his face and in his ear; an annoying fly that won’t quit; an insect hell bent on making the senator’s ultimate at bat miserable and unsuccessful. A fly that would love for the history-making Illinois senator lose his concentration, throw down his bat and ideally abandon the batter’s box.

The fly also has an R emblazoned on each wing, but the letter doesn’t stand for Republican. It stands for racism, and Obama, despite his inspiring oratory about wanting to be president of one nation under a groove and under God, has to continually be keenly aware that the fly is more of a formidable opponent that the “R” team and its star pitcher.

Actually, the fly triples as the team’s manager and first and third base coaches. The fly maps out strategies, calls the pitches and decides which relief pitchers to bring in from the 527 bullpen. (527 groups are the tax-exempt organizations created primarily to influence the nomination, election, appointment or defeat of candidates for public office. The term is generally used to refer to political organizations that are not regulated by the Federal Election Commission or states’ elections commission. Therefore, they can state almost anything they want in ads.)

The racial reality of this game is seen in the recent Washington Post-ABC News poll that revealed almost half of all Americans say race relations are in bad shape; three in 10 also cop to feelings of racial prejudice, which is the precursor to racism, or prejudice in action.

More than six in 10 African Americans rate race relations as “not so good” or “poor.” Just over half of whites called Obama a “risky” choice. About two in 10 worry he would over represent blacks’ interests. Nearly six in 10 believe his candidacy will shake up the racial status quo, for better or worse.

Reminiscent of the Mighty Casey who struck out to end the game back in 1888, Obama only is going to get one swing to become president. Here’s hoping he crushes the Republicans’ nasty fastball and that racist fly in one mighty swing.

Derrick K. Baker is a columnist for N’DIGO. Write to him at N’DIGO Magapaper, 19 N. Sangamon St., Chicago, Ill. 60607; or e-mail: DBaker1004aol.com.