Americans swell with pride over Ryan Vogelsong's Japanese baseball debut

By C. Schwetty Jacques
Sports Reporter

AMERICA -- From Maine to Alaska, Americans are still boasting about former Major League pitcher Ryan Vogelsong' Nippon Professional Baseball league debut with the Hanshin Tigers last week.

"It's just inspiring to see a six-foot-three, 195-pound American succeed athletically in a land where the average person is five-five and less muscular than Sanjaya Malakar," said Holly Nettles, 27, of Clear Water Park, Fla.

In Charlotte, N.C., where Vogelsong was born, mayor Pat McCrory declared July 22, Vogelsong's birthday, to be "Brian Vogelsong Day."

"Charlotte is proud of its native son's accomplishments in the great nation of Japan," McCrory said. "In the land of tiny ballplayers, Brian is, well, really tall. And we can all be proud of that. . . What? His name is Ryan? Oh, great."

Vogelsong, a forgotten major leaguer with a 10-22 record and a 5.86 career era, is an unlikely national hero. But Americans never miss an opportunity to show their superiority to other cultures.

"Just the fact that a pitcher who couldn't survive in the major leagues could be competitive at the highest level of Japanese baseball shows our country's innate superiority in all things," said Jim Nelson, 43, of Allentown, Pa. "Daisuke Matsuzaka is a great pitcher, but how many Japanese can cut it over here? Six? We can send our AAA rejects to Japan and they win national titles. What American wouldn't be proud of that?"

Comments

[brian]

that was funny...i laughed hard, but probably not as hard as "Bryan" is laughing on his way to the bank