It came to my attention that I had written a letter to the editor of the New York Times this past February, which in and of itself isn’t that weird. I mean, hey, I keep up on current events, I read the newspaper. Why not write a letter to the editor? Well, today I discovered that on February 29th they had published this letter, because I found the link to it right here
My letter is the second one down, and it reads:
Realistic in Detroit
To the Sports Editor:
In defending the Yankees’ acquisition of Alex Rodriguez, Harvey Schiller argues (”Yanks’ Savvy Move Should Be Blessing For All of Baseball,” Feb. 22) that “in a perfect world, there would be more A-Rods available” for everyone. He points to the fact that our youngsters are being lulled away from the baseball field by video games and television.
Here in Michigan, we are ecstatic because the Tigers have finally acquired a player people have heard of, Ivan Rodriguez. The Yankees light their cigars with Ivan Rodriguezes. Detroit cannot afford to put together a competitive team when there is an increasingly unipolar talent pool.
Schiller’s argument is tangential because player talent is relative. In a world of A-Rods, there would still be only a handful of A-plus-Rods, and the Yankees would gobble them up.
ERIC KARJALA
East Lansing, Mich.
Honestly, what the hell? There’re so many things wrong with me writing this letter to the editor. Consider these four factoids:
1) I don’t like baseball. I can’t stand watching it, and I certainly don’t keep up with baseball news—especially not to the extent that I write letters to the New York Times sports’ editor detailing my opinions about some random player acquisition.
2) “A-plus-Rods”? Oh, man. That’s one of the worst jokes I’ve ever heard.
3) The phrase “increasingly unipolar talent pool.” I have absolutely no idea what it means.
4) I am in no way “ecstatic” that the Tigers have acquired Ivan Rodriquez. Honestly, I’m not even mildly pleased that they’ve signed this baseball player. In fact, until I read this letter, I didn’t even know that they had.
The weird thing is that I sort of remember writing the letter, but I completely fail to remember why. One of these days I’m going to wake up and discover that I inexplicably own some random bagel sandwich shop in Montana or something, and I’m not going to be able to do a damned thing about it.
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