Oh, irony abounds in my little baseball blogosphere.Last week, I mentioned that the tenth person to follow my blog would be bestowed with the coveted Nate Graziano Tenth Player Award. We have a winner.
Ladies and gentleman, I am pleased to announce Mrs. Jaime Studd as the winner of The 2009 Nate Graziano Tenth Player Award.
A little bit about our winner: to begin, Jaime is my first-cousin. This is not the ironic part, nor is it nepotism, seeing half of the 11 people who follow my blog are related to me, either through blood or marriage.
Here is the bomb, and Sox fans, you might want to stop reading here: Jaime Studd, my cousin, is A YANKEE FAN!
If you trace its lineage, every family has their dirty, little secrets. Whether it is an illegitimate child borne of an inter-racial love affair or a distant uncle who lived out his life in an asylum after being arrested for masturbating at the zoo, trying to telepathically impregnate a female lemur, all families have dirty secrets. In my family, we have Yankee fans among us. But right here, right now, people of the world, I'm asking that we put an end to these secrets. This is 21st Century, and we live in a world that demands tolerance. Yes, I'm related to a Yankee fan, and I (sniff, sniff) love my Yankee fan cousin!
This brings me to another point, as I digress. The other day, I was talking to a friend...okay, I don't have any friends, so I was talking to a wino beneath a bridge and telling him how it is essential to the Sox/Yankees rivalry, the greatest rivalry in sports, that Yankee fans despise the Sox as much as we loath their team. It creates the inexorable passion that fuels both sides, establishes an ambiance where hostility and irrationality---it's a war, for God's sake---can exist with purpose. If Yankee fans were indifferent to The Red Sox and treated the games like they would a series against the Mariners, Sox fans would be pissing into the wind, full of futile bluster, every time the two teams met. In other words, if you've ever tried arguing with yourself, you've realized it's not as much fun as arguing with another person. In this sense, we---Sox and Yankee fans alike---must embrace each other's hate, celebrate our enmity, and press on.
Here's a non sequitur, but an amusing anecdote, nonetheless: Jaime, my tenth player winner, is also married to a Met's fan, a fine chap named Mr. William Studd. One night, during a lull in conversation at a bar, Bill lifted his glass and uttered the now-famous line: "Cheers to me!" Indeed, my friend, cheers to you.
Finally, seeing this past contest was such a raving success, I decided that I will also give out a 20th Player Award for the twentieth person to follow my blog, and the winner will receive a special prize, to be named later. At this pace, we should have a winner by, um, 2040.
(Honorary mention: Pee Wee. Cheers to you, too, Mr. Parker.)
3 comments:
While I'm honored (and, a little humiliated), I do have to say that I find it astounding that an English teacher, (an assumed stickler for spelling) and someone I've known for the nearly 33 years I've been on this earth, doesn't realize that my name is spelled J-A-I-M-E!
Love the content, though!!! We Yankee fans value your scorn and wrath just as much...feed off it, in fact!
I corrected the spelling. Sorry about that, JAIME. Surpringly, or not surprisingly, I'm a terrible speller, and even worse at self-editing.
Nothing to be humiliated by, JAIME. Ask yourself: Would Billy be humiliated? Then again, if the world were to use that measuring stick, we wouldn't have the concept of humiliation to contend with as part of the human experience.
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