Ball 5

Author: Justin Golenbock

It's Opening Day at Fenway and I'm distracted, so let's dip into the mailbag.

From Lexington, Mass., we have one reader, N. Sullivan, who'd like to respond with an apology for his response to last week's Ball 5 column:

"Dear Ball 5 reader(s?): I write to apologize. Until now I had been seduced by the myth of Trot Nixon.

He's a great hitting throwback who plays tough, right? Tough?! Trot Nixon's yearly income: $6 million. Eye-black: $5.95/tin. Dirt: free. After getting 'toughed' out for the year, Trot's still a millionaire. Tom Arnold is a millionaire. Now I don't like to generalize… but, yeah… A great hitter? Facing a righty with a mediocre fastball, Trot's your man. But it's well known that against any lefty with the talent level of a drunk hedgehog with an inner ear infection, Trot's in trouble. Trot, your cult of personality is over! Be warned!"



Which leads me to an interesting subject: apologies. As in, if you're one of the people who has ever disliked my column, you should write in and apologize. I promise you'll get in The Campus.

More relevantly: mailbags. Why does every columnist who thinks he's Peter King get to do this? You know, when a sports writer runs out of ideas and decides to simply respond to the random musings and inane inside jokes of his or her buddies and call it a column.

This wouldn't bother me, except they get paid to write these uninspired columns. I never run out of ideas. I simply get too lazy to come up with them.

Which leads full circle back to my original topic: apologies. As in, The Campus should apologize for offering me such an insultingly low dollar figure: $0.

Now, here I have indisputable PROOF that at least one person has purchased The Campus to read my column alone (how much do these things cost?), and yet, no e-mail entreaties. No phones ringing off their proverbial hooks. No Jerry Maguire-esque faxed salary sheets. Come on people, what does the Rod Tidwell of The Campus have to do? Show me the money!

So in honor of that most familiar emotion that motivates professional athletes (spurned arrogance), I'm hereby announcing my singular intention to finish this "contract year" (senior year) with a flurry of activity, before next year REFUSE TO WRITE ANOTHER WORD.

Yeah, that's right, you heard me: I'm holding out. Unless I get my money, it's this year, then I'm done.

But it shouldn't have to come to that. So to fully express my feelings on the subject, let me once more call upon the great Jerry Maguire:

"We live in a cynical world. A cynical world. And we work in a business of tough competitors. But [Campus]… I love you. You...complete me."