Congressman shot at baseball practice touts new book
WASHINGTON — After crisscrossing the country to bolster fellow Republicans, a Louisiana congressman who was shot at a congressional baseball practice last year squeezed in a publicity tour for his new book about his survival and recovery before returning to work in Congress.
U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise did a flurry of television interviews about “Back in the Game: One Gunman, Countless Heroes and the Fight For My Life” before heading back to Capitol Hill for the first time since Democratic victories flipped control of the U.S. House, The Advocate reported.
Scalise’s book offers a moment-bymoment account of a gunman’s June 2017 attack on the Republican congressional baseball practice in sub- urban Washington. A single rifle shot crushed Scalise’s hip and did massive damage to his internal organs. The Jefferson Parish lawmaker spent months confined to a hospital, where infections repeatedly threatened his life. He endured intense physical therapy to relearn how to walk.
Scalise, 53, told the newspaper that visitors to his hospital room repeatedly suggested he should write an account of his survival. The congressman said he didn’t take the proposition seriously until Utah Republican and best-selling author U.S. Rep. Chris Stewart urged him to consider it.
Along with a co-author, Scalise said he went back to interview some the people present at the baseball practice or involved in his recovery to get their versions of the story and piece back together everything that happened.
“In a lot of ways, it was therapeutic for me because it allowed me to relive the experience in a different way, from different perspectives that I didn’t see,” Scalise said.