Mr. Commissioner, Read My Lips: Make Jean Segura an All Star

My fellow Marinericans: Good morning. I’m not here to throw a lot of words and nonsense at you. Jean Segura is not an all-star, and there’s no time for words and nonsense. The President needs us to serve. No, not that President. No, not that one either. This one. The President of our hearts. The President of disgusted reaction gifs. The President of winning trades with the Diamondbacks. Your nation needs you, he says. Answer him.

The All-Star Game is stupid, they say. The final vote is stupid. Yes, a compelling argument can be made. Let me be clear: we are talking about a game in which grown-ass men in coordinating outfits use a piece of wood to hit a piece of leather around an elysian field for three hours, then go home and pretend it was a very normal day at the office and check their bank account to make sure their direct deposit has cleared, the same way you and I do each night in this fine nation. Nothing could be more stupid. Nothing could be more important.

On the grand scale, baseball itself and the all-star game and the final vote are imperceptibly separated. None of this matters. It’s all nonsense. Your family, your job, your country, your faith, your world: these things matter. Yet here you are, day after day, cheering for the Seattle Mariners. Let me ask you: who among these twenty-five men personifies this team more than Jean Segura? This team, that adopted “good” (“Bueno”) as its slogan before the year even began? This team, that smiles and keeps winning day after day, mocking pythagoreans on Szymborskis on BaseRuns? That defies every obstacle, every expectation, every injury, every suspension? There’s only one name. You know it in your deepest parts, the parts of you don’t express even to your spouse or children, that you desperately want to share but stifle for fear of rejection, of mockery. You don’t have to say it now, but you love it. You love him. He is your all-star. Make him your nation’s all-star.

I am here to ask humbly for your vote, as many times as you can spare it. Thank you, and may God bless the United States of Jeanmerica.