Hey John, thanks for touching on a news story the sports world covered when it happened a month and half ago. The Yankees did a shitty thing and the exposure is welcome. Kudos to you for the subversive premium seating ticket giveaway, too. But we’ve got a problem here, man. For some reason you took an unreasoned and factually inaccurate detour in your rant to call A-Rod a bunch of names.
“This is, this is, after all, a team that does things like blow $275 million on A-Rod. A man who poses for photos like this one [picture of A-Rod luxuriating in the cool ocean breeze] ‘Ahoy there, Ahoy there, asshole.’ It’s like that scene from Titanic except this time you’re actively rooting for the sea.”
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[Coils self up in chair, ready to unleash a withering takedown]
First of all, John, The New York Yankees did not “blow” $275 million on A-Rod. I know, I know, $275 million is a lot of money for schmucks like you and me, but maybe if you spent a little more time on the economics of sport and little less time on pwning noobs every Sunday night, you’d know that the Yankees have made out pretty well for themselves thanks to “blowing” that money on A-Rod. You might even say that all the money they have raked in since A-Rod joined the team has allowed them to maintain outrageous ticket prices even when those tickets go unsold. The sad thing is that this is exactly how teams win the PR battle against players getting paid money (by teams).
“Ohh my God, look at how much money this guy costs, and for what? Some stupid pictures???”
Congratulations, John, You just called into a sports radio show.
[mugs for the camera while studio applauds]
Oh yeah, that picture! What a stupid picture, right? Haha my god, what an asshole, a player posing for a picture. Doesn’t he know this picture makes his 687 career home runs null and void? Doesn’t he see that even though he switched positions when he came to New York, so that a lesser athlete with just as giant an ego could stay at shortstop, means nothing because he took a dumbass photo? What a dick! What an absolutely idiotic dickhead thing to do!
[glance at this picture that appeared over my left shoulder and cheekily shoulder shrugs, while studio applauds]
I would also just like to point out that John Oliver does not seem to have ever seen the film Titanic. Maybe because the ship itself is a pretty great metaphor for the absolute fucking failure that his home country became. After ruling the seas and much of the planet for centuries, the British-made ship fucking sank like a stone in the Atlantic in 1912. Five years later we saved everyone’s asses in World War I, propelling the United States to world superpower status where 100 years later, unknown British comedians would flock to our shores to serve as pupils to greater American comics and—through cronyism and other non-meritorious advancements—go on to say some stupid shit about the best baseball player who ever lived on his own premium cable TV show.
[applause button breaks, but the audience goes apeshit anyway]
Whatever the reason for this false description, that picture is nothing like the scene in Titanic when Jack and Rose are standing on the bow of the Titanic and feeling alive for the first time in possibly ever. First things first, A-Rod is just one person, not two people embraced in a highly emotional moment. Secondly, A-Rod is on the port side of the boat, not the front. Finally, his boat did not fucking sink, killing virtually everyone but the lying liar Rose, like the Titanic.
