I know you think you’re a big deal now that you’re a pro. I know you think the universe revolves around you. Well, I have news for you. Let me just cut you down to size now and save you the time. The fact is that I can walk into any neighborhood in Santo Domingo and find another asshole who’s just like you, okay? You are just one more asshole in the long line of players parading in and out of this city.
You’re not Lupica, that’s for goddamn sure.
(pokes you in the chest)
You merely play sports. But I make sports into art. I am a composer. I am a recorder of history. I tickle the imagination. When people centuries from now want to find something that captures the quintessence of the times in which we currently live, they’re not gonna watch some highlight of you rounding the bases like some jackass. They’re gonna get it from Lupica. I create, okay? I am a creator. I am the creator. So I don’t want to see you trying to upstage me with some bullshit home run pose. And I don’t want to hear you mouthing off some uninformed opinion to the rest of these slobbering idiots in the press, like you actually know something. You do the hitting, and I’ll do the writing. You got me? Know your role.
Oh, you wanna challenge me? Yeah, you don’t wanna do that. Cross me and I’ll write a piece so scathing you’ll need to rub Vaseline on your ass for a month. I’m the kind of guy that reads crossword puzzle answer keys and then writes his own clues, so you don’t want to try and match wits with me. The Yankees displeased me once. Once. You know what happened when they did? They got the full frontal force of Lupica crammed right down their throats. Look at this dagger, which I actually wrote on June 26th, 2007.
“Bronx Bombers? The Bronx Bomb is more like it.”
BOOM! See how I modified “Bombers” to “Bomb” to reverse the connotation? Holy shit, am I good. I’m just gonna sit back and read it to myself one more time.
(snickers)
God, I kill.
You wanna screw with that, jerkoff? If you think that’s bad, wait until I excoriate you on national television. One second listening to my voice and your scrotum will tighten like a beggar’s purse. And I’ll keep lecturing you until the myelin sheaths have been completely stripped from your nerves. It’s my gift, and you don’t want a taste of it.
(peers over glasses at you)
I’m sorry to break this to you, buddy, but the fans aren’t here to see you. That’s the hard truth. They’re here to see you in order to prepare themselves for the majesty that will spring forth from my keyboard the next day. I’m the show here, asshole. You’re just the fuel driving the engine. Athletes come and go. You’re here now, but soon you’ll move on. Or you’ll retire. You’ll have no lasting impact on this city. But I will. I am a goddamn institution. You are nothing. You’re less than nothing. You’re an accessory. A trinket.
What’s that? I’m the asshole? What, you think I give a shit what some two-bit Neanderthal like you thinks? There’s only one opinion that matters here, kid: Lupica’s. I’ve spent years building up an immunity to any sort of criticism. You’re not the first person who wanted to push me down a flight of concrete stairs, and you certainly won’t be the last.
Get it straight now, and maybe I’ll spare you my legendary wrath. But if you want to try and be Mr. Big Shot, don’t say I didn’t warn you. I’ll always be more important than the event I cover. You’re superfluous to the whole enterprise.
So don’t get too full of yourself.
That’s my job.
The sports network for people who don’t like sports: ESPN.
If you’re unfamiliar with the history of ESPN, simply tune in to SportsCenter tonight. They’ll almost certainly be celebrating an ESPN milestone of some sort. You’ll see old footage of Chris Berman that only Chris Berman enjoys watching. Then you’ll see footage of that crazy Stanford-Cal band play. Is it just as exciting the 56,872nd time you’ve watched it? Sure is!
In the old days, ESPN was an upstart company dedicated to serving sports fans with round-the-clock sports coverage and a SportsCenter anchored by Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann that featured actual highlights of that day’s games. But times have changed, and so has ESPN. As you are probably aware, ESPN is now a gigantic, soul-sucking collective that stays alive only by feeding itself its own shit. They currently have partial to total broadcasting control over the three major sports leagues in America. But that’s only the beginning. By the end of this century, ESPN management hopes to control the forty-eight contiguous states, along with parts of Southeast Asia and the Bering Strait.