Last Tuesday, Major League Baseball (MLB) announced that Commissioner Bud Selig will be the first recipient of the Commissioner Bud Selig Leadership Award.
In related news, last Monday The Emory Wheel announced that On Fire will be the first recipient of the semi-annual On Fire Excellence in Sports Journalism Award.
To be completely honest (and when have our loyal readers not found your truthful On Fire correspondent to be anything less than honest), the latter award does not exist.
At least not yet – our intern is working on it.
(Those interested in filling this position next semester should send their resumes to bostdie@emory.edu – we are working on making the internship count as a four-hour HAPW, and we all know how tough it is to find a good writing requirement these days).
Seriously, how absurd is it to win an award named after yourself? It is not that we at On Fire doubt the excellency of Bud Selig's leadership (except we actually do doubt the excellency of Bud Selig's leadership, but that is based more on our innate distrust of those in positions of power rather than any actual failings on the part of Mr. Selig). It is simply a matter of principle.
What if the White House announced that Barack Obama won the Barack Obama Excellence in Politics Award?
What if the SGA announced that Meredith Honeycutt won the Meredith Honeycutt Excellence in Accounting Award? (Seriously though, keep your head in the game, Meredith Honeycutt).
The point is, there is no possible way the MLB and Bud Selig could have done this while simultaneously taking themselves seriously. Only one possible explanation remains.
The stupid things done by those in the world of basketball and football have been dominating the pages of On Fire lately, and the powers-that-be in the world of baseball must have been getting jealous.
Your imaginative On Fire correspondent can picture the meeting right now in his (or her) head. The day is last Monday. A bunch of baseball bigwigs are sitting around a table, smoking cigars and spitting sunflower seeds.
By all accounts everything is going well – profits are up, attendance is up, this year's sunflower seed crop was particularly delicious.
But still they are not completely satisfied. They ask themselves, "Why is this not enough? What are we missing?"
And then they hit on the answer. "We have not been featured in On Fire lately!" they exclaim in sudden realization. ("By the way," Bud Selig whispers to the cigar-smoking, sunflower seed-spitting man next to him, "did you hear that On Fire won the On Fire Excellence in Sports Journalism Award earlier today? How absurd is it to win an award named after yourself?")
But recognizing that you have a problem is only the first step. Next, our good friends in the MLB need to figure out what they could do to get into On Fire.
They sit around the table, smoking their cigars, spitting their sunflower seeds in a frustrated silence. "What can we do that would be absurd enough to get us into On Fire?," they ask themselves again and again.
And then inspiration strikes. Bud Selig shouts in a burst of insight, "If we want absurdity, we must look to the masters of absurdity! We must do as On Fire did!"
The Commissioner stands up, spits out a sunflower seed, and gives his cigar a puff. "Gentlemen, we must create the Bud Selig Leadership Award. I think all of you know who must win it."
The other men in the room leap to their feet and begin to clap. They have recognized genius; they have seen the truth.
They have found a way to get covered in On Fire.
Well congratulations boys, you did it. Total Pro Sports just released a ranking of the 13 hottest wives and girlfriends in Super Bowl XLVIII. This is important, hard hitting news, and it deserved its time in On Fire. But On Fire did not win the On Fire Excellence in Sports Journalism Award for covering important, hard hitting news.
Congratulations again, Bud Selig and company, you were just absurd enough to get your story into these vaunted pages.
