I am America (and so can you!) (67 page)

I A M A M E R I C A ( A N D S O C A N Y O U ! )

7th INNING STRETCH: “Buy me some peanuts and cracker jacks...” Hey, buy them yourself! Just more melodic proof that we are living in a welfare state.

Baseball reflects the American dream in many other ways. Baseball players are very well paid, and they get to stand around in a park most of the time. Once in a while, a ball comes their way, but the rest of the game can be spent scanning the crowd for hot girls. When their team comes up to bat, baseball players are considered incredibly skilled if they can do their job 35% of the time. In almost all other American professions, workers are expected to get that number up to at least 45% or they’d be fired.

TIME OUT:
Bull Durham
is the best Kevin Costner baseball movie. After that comes
Field of Dreams
, then
For the Love of the Game
, and then
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.

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B L O C K B U S T E R “ N O W Y O U D O N ’ T H A V E T O C H O O S E ” S P O R T S C H A P T E R

I should add, I do most of my sport-related Kevin Costner research at my local Blockbuster. Why do I tell you this?

BECAUSE:
Blockbuster just bought out the sponsorship rights for this chapter from Chevron. It’s now called the

“Now You Don’t Have to Choose”

Ball’s in your court, Netflix.

ICE HOCKEY:
Ice hockey is training for our eventual war with the glaciers. They’ve encroached before and they’ll do it again. Remember the
Titanic
! This
Ice, you’re on thin ice.
proud sport teaches us how to combat the ice menace using only sticks and a Zamboni. With ice hockey and our good friend global warming, we might just win the cold war again.

WORLD’S STRONGEST MAN COMPETITION:
I’ve said it before—it’s not really a sport unless there’s the possibility of dislodging your intestines. Luckily, the Met-Rx World’s Strongest Man Competition fits this bill. It uses a complex and indisputable formula to crown its champion. You are truly the most powerful man on earth if you can pull a semi with your teeth, hurl a keg full of lead shot over a wall, and lift at least 20 natives of the impoverished country in which the event is held.3

Items you must lift to be the World’s Strongest Man:

• A

mule

•

Rodin’s “The Thinker”

•

Rodin’s ‘The Thinker” riding a mule

•

A suitcase full of duty-free sambuca

•

A train car packed with hobos

•

Former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert

The one-ton meatball lift is

•

St. Paul, Minnesota

particularly hard.

3
Every night I carry the weight of the nation on my shoulders. Top that, Iceland’s Magnus Ver Magnusson!

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