It’s time for some sharing. I’m talking about some deep, inner soul sharing. The kind of stuff that usually comes out at 3 am at the end of a long, impromptu, philosophical conversation about life, jelly beans and VHS vs. Beta. I had a few of those in college. They are great memories for me, but there is something that I never shared. It is a secret so deep, that I’ve probably only told a few dozen people about it and I may have mentioned it here on the blog, although I’m not entirely sure. Can I google my blog and find out? I’m positive that I can. Will I? I’m not done with this post yet, but the odds are stacked heavily against it. As all Shuck N’ Jive related bets have recently been banned in all Las Vegas casinos due to their highly unpredictable nature, I can’t tell you what the line is exactly, but if you were to bet one dollar that I’m going to google to see if I’ve mention this particularly deep guarded secret, well, you could potentially win yourself a cool $600+ million. And that is a very significant number. More so than you may actually realize. Allow me to explain.
It’s deeply guarded secret reveal time. Always a fun time here at TSNJ.
Ever since I was in my early 20’s, I’ve wanted to own a professional baseball team. More specifically, I’ve wanted to own a team in the Major Leagues. I could have purchased a “professional” team in Sri Lanka for $12.58 and a pack of gum, but the Sri Lankan squad has yet to win an international game in 4,526 attempts. I like an underdog as much as anyone, but I didn’t see a lot of promise there. Their farms system was literally a bunch of rubber tree farms. Yes, the price was right, but I didn’t really feel like that was the dream fulfilling stuff I was looking for.
Then, yesterday, the Tribune company announced that at the end of the 2007 season, the Chicago Cubs will be put up for sale. I smelled an opportunity. It’s not often that you get this much notice that a team is going to be put up for sale. That means I’ve got nearly 6 months to get my funds together for a bid to purchase the team. The estimated value of the Chicago Cubs is $600 million (see the Vegas ban tie in?).
I’m currently living at home with my parents, rent free. So yeah, I’m saving a little bit of money, but probably not quite enough for me to buy the team. I’m going to need some help. I’ve never had a problem asking for help though, so there’s nothing new that I’m going to attempt here. All I’m asking is that every man, woman and child in the United States of America donate $2.50 to me so that I can buy the Cubs. The last estimated population of the US was 298,444,215 people. That was in July of 2006. I can’t imagine that there’s any less than 350,000,000 now. That means if everyone donates, I’ll have approximately 875 million dollars to work with. I think that should cover the cost of buying the team, as well as relocating myself to the city of Chicago. I don’t think that’s asking too much. I mean, if I own the team, I ought to live in the city, right?
Am I qualified to own a baseball team? Well, I can tell you that in my life I’ve owned many things. Many, many things. So yeah, I think I’m qualified to own a baseball team. But if that doesn’t convince you (and I can’t imagine a world in which that doesn’t) but just to humor those that I don’t believe exist, let me tell you a story. This particular story took place last night. I was playing second base for my company softball team, of which I am also the manager (seriously, should I just stop here? I think I’m starting to be so unbelievably over qualified it’s getting a little ridiculous), and the man at the plate hit a scalding, eye-level ball RIGHT AT ME. Of course I caught it, but that’s not where this story ends, no, that would be too easy, and also not very convincing. The story, since it didn’t end there, continues like this: Having caught the ball, I saw out of the corner of my eye that the runner on third had taken several steps towards home. Since I just caught the ball, that meant that he had to get back to third base before I threw the ball over there or he would be out. He was jogging rather nonchalantly, so I reached back and fired kind of a weak rainbow somewhere halfway between third and home. Needless to say, the runner was safe, but I proved my baseball savvy to pretty much anyone watching the play. That included the wife and two kids (ages 4 and 6) of one of our players. It did not however, include our third baseman. None of that really matters though except to show that I’m clearly, amazingly qualified to own and operate a Major League franchise.
I’ll be setting up a paypal link for donations later on this week just to make things easy for everyone. I’ll also be accepting direct cash donations by random strangers on the street. Don’t be a jerk, just do your part so that I can live a dream. I’ll make a plaque or something to commemorate all those that donated. Word to the wise, the more you donate, the more legible your name will be on the plaque…
