Historical humor by Tom Hoerr. Proposed sports rules and presidential lottery are satire, not actual rules or election procedures.
Maybe its because I’ve never been tall, fast, lithe, or particularly coordinated, but it seems to me that there’s something terribly wrong and unfair about a society in which only a relatively few talented individuals can be professional athletes. I’ve just finished reading about some jock-type getting a cool million a year for playing a kids’ game and it bothers me. It’s not so much that he’s getting it; it’s that I can’t!
Let me say straightout: I think it’s OK that a baseball player gets paid more than the President. Heck, it’s fine with me if basketball players make more than doctors.
I know that’s an unpopular view, but let’s consider the facts: your basic MD isn’t really a whole lot different than the corner auto mechanic. Oh sure, the doctor’s “engine” may be a bit more complex, and there’s more at stake in a heart transplant than in changing points and plugs on your Pontiac, but both chores primarily consist of doing some cookbook mechanical work, y’know “Attach A and B to C .” Besides, think how’ much easier the mechanic’s job would be if your car could tell him where it hurts.
Having established that I have no problem with athletes being paid megabucks, let me go back to my original point, the inequity involved in who qualifies to be a professional athlete. Somehow it seems wrong that it helps to be tall — something I can’t control — to play basketball. I mean, where can you go to learn to be tall? (I once had a short friend who aspired to be tall and hung from tree limbs at every available opportunity.
It didn’t help him grow, but he developed an insatiable desire to eat bananas!) Can I help it if I’m not tall? Is it my fault if I hit my thumb when hammering (and clapping)? Why should I be discriminated against because my nose runs better than my feet? Try as I might, I identify a lot more with Walter Mitty than Keith Hernandez.
Even on the St. Roch’s geriatric softball team, I don’t quite cut it. People ask me to play so they can borrow my glove and it’s from Central Hardware! I’ve given the matter some thought, and I have a solution. No, not gene-splicing. I’m not talking about tampering with what Mother Nature gives us (besides, I hate to see Levis made into cut-offs). I think we should organize and lobby to demand that the rules be changed so that we normal folks will have the advantage. Its time to even things out!
Let me give you an example. Why does the basketball goal have to be ten feet from the ground?
That clearly offers an advantage to the tall people of the world. Why not lower the rim to, say, two feet from the floor?
Think of how that could revolutionize the game. Heck, Mickey Rooney could slam-dunk with all of his wives! Coaches would be actively recruiting midgets and people who can run hunched over for forty minutes without developing a backache. (If this comes to pass, buy some stock in Ben-Gay!) That’s a start.
No longer is height an advantage, but how about the advantage given to speed? Simple … require everyone to play on roller skates! There’s still the matter of coordination being an asset, so I’m also suggesting that everyone wear mittens and carry water balloons under their armpits. ‘ We need not stop with basketball, however. Spring is here so baseball season is upon us. Interested in earning that easy money playing baseball, but concerned that you’re too slow or not athletic enough? Here, too, a few simple rule alterations can put you on the bubble-gum cards.
First, why not make the bases closer together to reduce the advantage that swift runners now have? Instead of the current ninety feet between bases, let’s make them six feet apart. Have trouble turning once you’ve built up momentum running the six feet between bases? Simple, let’s lay out all the bases on a straight line.
That still leaves the pitcher with a big advantage, so let’s substitute a bowling ball for the baseball!
Oh, I know you can’t hit it very far, but think how difficult it will be for someone to field a ground bowling ball and throw you out. (Besides, if you ever did hit a fly ball, who would catch it?) I could go on and on, but I think you get my point. Its high time that we take athletics back from the athletes and give them to the common man.
A few rules changes here and there can make you a champion!
Finally, if you’ve followed me this far, it need not stop with athletics. Why should the best and the brightest make the most money and hold high offices? What about us normal klutzes???
In my next column I’ll discuss my idea of selecting our President through a nationwide lottery so that we’ll all have an equal chance to be President, irrespective of merit. I’m thinking of tying it into the Reader’s Digest National Sweepstakes: “You may already be the President of the United States! Just return this envelope by midnight tonight.” After all, looking at the people who appear on television to show us their sweepstakes winnings, and considering who’s in office now, what have we got to lose?
Originally published in The Paper, April 1981.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1981_04.pdf, printed page(s) 8; PDF page(s) 8.
