Hey, Hobbs! Over here. Helluva a game. Hell-uv-a game. I'm proud to be your manager. Even prouder than I am to smoke — (coughs) — Tar Jar Cigarettes. Tar Jar Cigarettes: More tar ... than you'd find in a jar.
That game-winning home run off the light tower that made the whole atmosphere awash with flickering light? And made time stand still? Absolutely incredible. Real heroic stuff. Made me believe in baseball again. And not just in baseball. It made me believe that a man with an exceptional skill can always find a way back home, from any lot in life. That, if there's still time on the clock, we don't have to deliberately extinguish our own magic just because of that deep-seated doubt. That, from our lowest lows, we can and will rise again. Anyway, that will be $382.
Ridiculous?! You "deserve grace" for "creating an indelible moment"? You "won the game"? My fourth starter stepped in glass on his way back out to the bullpen. My bullpen catcher got hit by fire. It was one of the totemic mythical blasts in this great nation's history, as symbolic a baseball moment as I've ever seen, but also my Plymouth got hit with a hunk of shrapnel and now my wife's mad at me — not you. Me. She doesn't even know you. That's crazy. It's something you did.
Oh, and while we're here, I hope you don't mind me saying this, but ... your talent is unmatched. Your prodigious power is the stuff of legends. Would it kill you to play with the regulation equipment we've purchased? Every time you stride to the plate with that homemade bat, our owner is like, "Can everyone on the team do that? Make their own stuff?" I tell him I'm not even sure how you did it. "We'd save thousands," he says. I tell him that might not be true. We'd have to send everyone to an expensive Woodworking Academy, at the very least — also probably at the very most. But that's not cheap!
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Robert Redford in 'The Natural' caused a lot of unpaid damages
Yes, that's one of the reasons I'd really like to recoup some of this light-smashing money. I know it doesn't grow on trees down here at this level, but ... you have more of it than I do? I'm a 52-year-old fireman. I do this part-time. When the games end, I go home and spend six hours hitting a stump with an axe. My future is cholera.
Hey, would you mind turning down that bombastic music that started echoing when you went yard, by the way? It's still blaring. Yeah, makes it really hard to critique you and ask for stuff.
Anyhow, if you could find it in your heart to make things whole, present us with restitution and keep my legs intact, I'd be forever indebted to your grace. People simply love breaking people's legs during this time period. Don't want that!
Oh, and Hobbs? Almost forgot. I'm reading this incredible book right now, and the main character ... man, he's a lot like you. Crazy ending, though. Gets bribed. Loses the championship. (checks pages) Weeps in disgrace. I mean, geez. Talk about a cautionary tale. Glad that's not what happened here! (checks pages) Oh, wait, sorry, that'll be $384. Forgot to carry the two and add on two dollars. For a bribe.