the acceptance speech

It is my great honor to to receive such a life changing prize and I would like to take a few moments to elaborate on the depths of my gratitude.  Each of us has a little bit of "the babe" in us when we reach down deep enough to touch the spark that activates the resilancy of the human spirit to continue forward in the face of adversary and to push beyond the merely mundane into the realm of unknown possibilities. A celebration of a record breaking streak is very much a celebration of our ownselves as we tackle a future that beckons us towards the miracles of hope and blessings still yet to come. There is more that awaits the adventurous soul that rebukes the boundaries of a humid summer sky and instead reaches for a field of dreams. This ongoing competition has offered people from all walks of life the opportunity to participate in the comemoration of one of sport's history's most noteable legends of athetic precision and endurance that will remain forever emblazoned in the hearts and souls of baseball fans everywhere.  

Which brings us to  next inevitable question of who is your favorite team because without that monumental choice hanging in the balance there would be no "us" versus "them". As a society, we collectively agree on the rudimentary principal that there must always be a division amongst ourselves. The line in the sand that seperates the good guys from the bad ones is what we have determined to be the sole element that keeps our world from falling to pieces. The improbabality of being able to obtain a sense of self identity from a multi faceted perspective has become our holy grail. Lesiure time to indulge in fandom has convinced us that by worshipping at the altar of singularity, the fabric of our lives will never cease to intertwine with the stability of the forces that we rely on to continue our existence. A single voice that opts to cry foul on the unified thought that perhaps loyalty to a person,place, or thing can result in a shallow one dimensional pathway,must thus face the challenge of being ostracisized and ridiculed with the utmost contempt. So, in retrospect, while sports enthusiasts are busy pledging allegiance to a team logo, I have been pre occupied with chewing bubblegum and kicking ass, and I am all out of bubblegum.