I’m going to talk to my wife and see if I can get a bat or one of your shirts. After all, her birthday is coming up.

I work 40 hours a week in civil service, solving and addressing problems of people just like me all day, every day. Every age, race and ideology, doesn’t matter.

I raise my children with unconditional love. I obey laws, have never been arrested and give to charity.

I am not on broadcast media, I do not make a lot of money and outside of my small town, no one knows my name.

I was never very good at sports, I am not very good looking. Of course you don’t know who I am.

But I am the real hero.

I have to say, though, that Mean Joe Green, whom I’d never heard of until this posting by Joe, is ten times the actor John Wayne ever was.

And to Garrett Hawk @73 . . .

Before submitting a comment, select it and save. Then, when it disappears into the ethernet, come back, paste it, re-enter your name and address and try again.

I can’t top those, but here’s my 2 cents worth:

1) I’m a former sportswriter (worked at the Savannah the same time you were in Augusta, Joe). One of the reasons I became a sportswriter is that I grew up reading Peter Gammons’ column in The Sporting News. I idolized him.

I covered the 1991 World Series in Atlanta, and I was on the field before one of the games. I see Gammons standing by one of the dugouts. I so wanted to walk over, introduce myself and interview him for a notes column I had to file — and let it slip that he was a big reason why I was a sportswriter. But I didn’t. I chickened out. Why? Because I was scared to death he would disappoint me. And I just didn’t want to go through the rest of life being let down by one of my heroes.

2) I lived from 1980-83 in Rochester, NY (high school years). In those early days, the Rochester Red Wings, AAA farm club of the Orioles, had a SS prospect named Bob Bonner. He was the heir apparent to Mark Belanger and Kiko Garcia — until a REALLY good SS prospect named Cal Ripken Jr. passed him. Anyway, one night I got Bob Bonner’s autograph on a baseball.

Flash forward 20 years. I used to cover Savannah’s Single A baseball team, which gave me a chance to sit in dugouts and talk to former players from my youth, such as Richie Hebner and Ted Simmons (who I inadvertently pissed off, but that’s another story).

One night I notice that one of the coaches for the visiting team was Bob Bonner. So after the game I go to the visiting clubhouse and approach Bonner. I ask him, “Are you the Bob Bonner who used to play for the Rochester Red Wings and Baltimore Orioles?”

He looks at me warily and says, “Yeah …”

I respond, “I got your autograph one time 20 years ago. I still have the baseball.”

Bonner breaks out in a huge smile and says loudly so everyone in the clubhouse can hear: “Hey, somebody knows who I am! I gotta tell my wife!”

Still one of the highlights of my sportswriting career (after five years I switched to editorial writing).

And no, child acting is not any better nowadays. You can just see the bad acting in crystal-clear high def.

No record of it. No post. Vanished into thin air, like a number of my posts.
Yes I hit “Submit Comment.” Yes, it was entirely G-Rated.

Unless you despise the Dodgers, Scully, or me personally, I’d like an explanation for this.