Reasons aren’t clear, but American revenge drama Virginians vote out Cantor plays out on baseball field

don’t actually know a lot more about Brat at this point. The website for his candidacy noted that he served on Virginia’s Joint Advisory Board of Economists under two governors and claimed that everyone in the state comes to him for budgetary insight, “knowing that he tested his rural values against the intellectual elite while at Princeton.” Actually, he went to Princeton Theological Seminary, which is an entirely different place.

There are definitely some downsides to this development. Brat, who leads Randolph-Macon’s BB&T Moral Foundations of Capitalism program, once co-authored a paper on “The Moral Foundations in Ayn Rand,” and there is possibly nothing the nation needs less than a new Ayn Rand fan in Congress.

Cantor’s district in Virginia is heavily Republican, so the Democratic nominee — Jack Trammell, an associate sociology professor at Randolph-Macon College — is a long shot. But Brat could wind up being a terrible candidate. In one of his first interviews after the victory, he was asked for his position on raising the minimum wage and replied: “I don’t have a well-crafted response on that one.” Now, you could understand why a guy in his position wouldn’t have a detailed plan for what to do about Syria, but an economics professor who has spent the last sever- al months telling people that he wants to help working-class America really ought to have thought this one out.

And, by the way, what do you think is going on with the faculty at Randolph-Macon College?

Armed with a 26-1 cash advantage, Cantor apparently couldn’t resist introducing voters to his hitherto unknown opponent by running attack ads, howling about “Liberal College Professor David Brat.” In Virginia, Democrats and independents are allowed to vote in the Republican primary. Maybe some of them saw the ads and thought: “Great! A liberal professor!”

Maybe not. But as the sun sinks on Eric Cantor, we have to reflect that one of the pluses to this story is that the House majority leader may have lost his seat because he made a mistake in presuming that Americans hate professors more than professional politicians.

Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord. And although retribution shall surely come in the fullness of time, a ballplayer can only wait so long.

Accordingly, when Boston slugger David Ortiz came to bat against Tampa Bay’s David Price at the end of May — for the first time this season — Price fired the very first pitch square into Ortiz’s back.

On Oct. 5, 2013, Ortiz had hit two home runs off Price. After swatting the second, Ortiz stood at home plate seeming to admire his handiwork, watching the ball’s majestic arc into the right field stands — and only then began his slow, very slow, trot around the bases.

This did not sit well with Price. So through the fall and winter, through spring training and onethird of the new season, Price nursed the hurt. Then he redeemed his honor.

Which made for complications: further payback (Tampa Bay star Evan Longoria received a close retaliatory shave and two other players were hit before the game was done); major mayhem in the form of the always pleasing, faintly ridiculous, invariably harmless bench-clearing brawl; and all-around general ill feeling. After the game, Ortiz declared himself at war with Price, advising the louse to prepare for battle at their next encounter.

Price feigned innocence.

What is so delightful about this classic act of revenge is both the length of the fuse — eight months! — and the swiftness of the execution: one pitch, one message delivered. Revenge as it was meant to be: cathartic, therapeutic, clean, served cold. “Direct action,” as the left might put it.

Think of it, compact and theatrical, as a highly abridged “Count of Monte Cristo,” still the most satisfying revenge novel of all time.

I suspect what makes revenge so satisfying in both literature and sport is that, while the real thing can turn rather ugly, revenge thusly mediated can be experienced not just vicariously but schematically.

After all, there is nothing satisfying about watching a well-armed real-world thug like Vladimir Putin chew up neighboring countries to avenge the Soviet collapse of 1991. Or the Crimean giveaway of 1954. Or was it Czar Nicholas’ misadventure of 1917-18?

Even benign dreams of restoration can be a bit unsettling. Ever seen a Quebec license plate? “Je me souviens.” In English, “I remember.” What? The Battle of the Plains of Abraham, marking the fall of Quebec to Britain — in 1759.

The response became known centuries later as “la revanche des berceaux.” Revenge of the cradles. They multiplied. A serious exercise in making love, not war.

But the amorous Quebecois are the exception. More common are the savage retributive habits of the more tribal elements of the human family. The Serbs, for example, waging late 20th-century war suffused with fury at the Turkish conquest of Kosovo, 1389.

We Americans, children of so young a country, can barely fathom such ineradicable grievances. We’ll do our vengeance on the playing field, thank you, where unwritten rules apply and the frisson can be enjoyed with Bud in hand. So mark your calendar. Next Sox-Rays encounter: July 25. Here’s hoping Price is pitching.