María Corina Machado, Venezuela’s opposition leader and last year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner, presented her prize to President Trump on Thursday during a meeting in the White House. – New York Times
Back when I was a no-field, no-hit second baseman for Milk Maid Ice Cream (team motto: “Win or Lose, Our Sponsor Really Should Treat Us to Sundaes After Every Game”), there came a day when the clouds parted and a heavenly beam of light did shine down upon me: I hit two doubles.
Unto me was therefore awarded the Game Ball, an honor I so cherished that I errantly pegged it into the rain gutters of my house and kept it there, for safekeeping.
Let’s face it, nice as the Game Ball is, it’s like getting the FIFA Peace Prize rather than the Nobel. Following the lead of our president, I am therefore demanding my enshrinement in the Hall of Excellence at the World of Little League Museum.
Two doubles in one game may not seem Hall-worthy, but consider the Criteria for Selection, posted on the Little League Museum website:
- He or she must have played in a chartered local Little League
- He or she must have become a recognized role model as an adult.
That I meet the first criterion is beyond dispute. As for the second: When my playing days ended, I coached in the Mid-Queens Boys Club. At an age when I should have been getting high and chasing girls, I reminded lonely outfielders to look alive and exhorted flailing batters to wait for their pitch.
This, while setting the record for the largest Afro ever squeezed under a baseball cap (Oscar Gamble holds the Major League Record).
If the world-class ‘fro doesn’t make me a role model, consider the inspirational value of my story: Talentless Little Leaguers will be uplifted by the thought that they, too, are one or two lucky swings away from Game Ball immortality.
If nothing else, Hall of Excellence voters should consider the money they’d save on my induction ceremony: Williamsport is only an hour away from my home so the museum wouldn’t have to fly me in or put me up.
Once I’m granted my rightful place in Little League lore, I’ll turn my attention to the Pulitzer Prize, sometimes referred to as the Game Ball of Journalism.
I have, to date, written approximately 800 columns for various news organizations, which is 100 times the number of wars President Trump has, by his count, ended.
Of course, output alone shouldn’t qualify one for journalism’s most coveted honor, but I submit that a few of the columns were readable and in the days when they were printed on paper, many enjoyed a second life lining birdcages and protecting floors from puppy poop.
As it happens, my dear friend Heidi Evans was awarded a Pulitzer for her work at the New York Daily News, so I feel confident that I can get her to follow Maria Corina Machado’s lead and transfer the award to me in exchange for a standing invitation to rest and relax at my home in Happy-Valley-a-Lago.
The next historical wrong I’ll right will be when I collect a lifetime Obie, awarded for achievement in off-Broadway and off-off Broadway theater. Not many people know about my acting career – we role model types don’t like to brag – but I trod the boards at Dutch Broadway School as one of the Lost Boys in “Peter Pan,” and as the Tin Man (actually the Spray-Painted Cardboard Box Man) in “The Wizard of Oz.”
I followed those breakthrough performances by rocking an English accent (OK, I sounded more like Bela Lugosi’s Dracula) in an adaptation of the musical “Half a Sixpence.”
My elementary school triumphs landed me an audition for the role of a “street urchin” in a play called “Time of the Cuckoo.” The director, who happened to have the same last name as me (being my father and all), thought I was perfect for the part.
Some actors are known entirely for their work on the stage, others solely for gracing the silver screen. That’s not me. In addition to my theater credits, I appeared in the film “Hooray for Mr. Touchdown,” produced and directed by my Penn State colleagues Maura Shea and Rod Bingaman.
Critics lauded me for bringing the emotional range of a potted palm to my portrayal of a fedora-wearing sportswriter. Clearly, an Oscar for Best Performance by a Houseplant is long overdue. There are, to be sure, other worthy candidates in the history of the cinema, but I don’t think I’d be jumping the gun if I were to buy, not rent, my tuxedo right now, do you?
As for the Nobel Peace Prize, it’s true that I haven’t ended any international conflicts yet, but I did broker a truce between feuding family members some years back.
Look, I don’t like to issue ultimatums, but if I don’t get any of these awards, I may have to seize an island. Nothing big. Or icy. Maybe one of the smaller Florida Keys. I’m not greedy.
