Hi Alex. It's been a while since we talked last. At least, it's been a while since I sat near third base and shouted stuff at you.
I see that the media down there in New York have decided to continue to villify you, despite your spectacular season. And who am I to talk, right? I've heckled you, written mean things about you and even made a gigantic $250,000,000 bill with your face on it, with "In God we trust" replaced by "Show me the money".
But come on -- I root for the other guys. You play for a long time juggernaut of the American League East, a team that my beloved Blue Jays would have to climb over to make it into the playoffs. When you fail, that can only mean good things for my team. My duty as a fan is to make it tough for you when you come up here.
Last year you had an off season by your lofty standards, and the boys in your local press box made your life difficult because of it. This year they've run out of nasty things that they can say about your ballplaying, because you're having a spectacular season, so they've turned to your personal life.
In the history of baseball, has this ever happened before? The home town press are trying to run you out of town during what is shaping up to be one of the best seasons of your career. What on earth are they thinking? And what on earth can you do to stick it to them?
Clearly, you need to demand a trade. Clearly, the trade must be to an AL East team, so that you can make a dozen trips back to Yankee stadium and tear the metaphorical roof off of the place, and make 'em look bad on their dedicated cable TV channel.
May I humbly suggest our own Toronto Blue Jays? The advantages are numerous:
1) you're really close to New York, so there's no way that they could avoid hearing about how good you are.
2) while our local press can be pretty vicious, they tend to save their barbs for team management and not the players. And even then, they're not all that mean -- just kind of misguided.
3) Prince lives here. I don't know if you know Prince or even like him, but he's really cool. Or so I hear.
4) I just installed a projector in my home theatre, and now it's the baddest of badass home theatres. And I soundproofed it so it won't wake up the kids. Do you like Apocalypse Now? You can come over and watch it whenever you like. Provided that I'm home and you're not supposed to be playing a baseball game or something.
I'm certain that there are plenty more reasons (some of which I'm sure that my friends and colleagues will point out in the comments below) -- but the most important one would be to stick it to those New York writers by kicking the ass of the Yankees, over and over and over again.
Please think about it.
Sincerely,
Aaron Reynolds
a.k.a. Named For Hank
p.s. if you come to Toronto, you can have the $250,000,000 bill.
p.p.s. it's not legal tender.
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20070530135608799