Our Heroes!

The batter stepped to the plate and swatted the first pitch, a fast ball, out of the ballpark.

It sailed through the air and over the fence and kept going and going until it came to another baseball park where it also passed over the home run wall, and still traveling it soared on to every baseball park in the world and cleared every outfield wall for a home run in every park and every field at every baseball venue on earth.

And all the runners who were on base at every field ran for home and crossed every plate and scored and scored and scored.

And all the people in the parks cheered and cheered and cheered and cheered, all across the earth they cheered.

And then the hitter basked and glowed and tipped his hat to all the cheering fans and then he went home to practice and practice and practice, and he practiced every waking hour until he came up to bat again, a rich and storied hero, and he swung as hard as he could, and he hit the ball out of the park, and it landed in the bay, and he threw up his hands in disgust, and ran around the bases and the people cheered but not like they did before.

And the great striker went home and fell into a funk and committed suicide the next day.

And in another city, another man addressed a golf ball, and slashed at it hard, driving it into a long arc through the air. It landed on the green and rolled straight into the hole. It was a hole in one. The gallery went wild.

Then the golf ball hopped out of the hole and rolled down the fairway into the next hole and then on to every hole on the golf course, and then it flew into the air and rushing on to the next golf course, it rolled into every hole there and then flew into the air and shot throughout the world, entering and exiting every golf course hole on the planet.

And up went the great golfer’s name, at the head of every leader board in the world.

And all the people cheered and cheered and cheered and cheered and cheered.

And the golfer went home and studied the video of his great feat and studied and studied it some more so that he could be sure to swing just like that again.

And back to the golf course he went for the next tournament and all the people came out to see him swing and swing he did and he hit the ball straight into the hole again, with one swing, a hole in one, but this time it didn’t come out and go in the other holes, and all the people groaned and the golfer threw up his hands and went to his caddie talking seriously about what might be done.

And he went home to bad press, and then it came out that he had failed a drug test, and all his titles were taken from him, and all his money and then he fell into a terrible funk and he shot his wife in the night.

He said he thought she was an intruder, but he went to jail anyway for the crime.