David Wright of the New York Mets either does not know what a sandwich is, or is complicit in the gradual but total erosion of the English language. This is the only conclusion I can take away from Ted Berg's interview with Mr. Wright, in which he was asked to name his favorite sandwich.
I suggested that the sandwich wasn’t terribly far off from Elvis’ favorite, and described The King’s peanut butter with honey, banana and bacon on bread grilled in butter.
"No bacon, no butter," Wright said. "And I usually eat it on a wrap."
If a wrap is a sandwich, than so are you, and so am I, and so is the wine sifter I just threw through my study window in a fit of rage. I will not allow this mutilation of our language to stand. Apologies in advance for how pointed I am about to get, but I tend to become upset when issues of such importance are understood so wrongly.
Every baseball team, I feel, has a spirit sandwich. For example, the Philadelphia Phillies are a novelty menu item -- a 10-pound cheeseburger that is free if you can finish the entire thing.
The Florida Marlins are a crisp vegetable sandwich, which, with its humble cucumber slices and alfalfa sprouts, overachieves to deliver something reasonably tasty.
The St. Louis Cardinals are a barbecue sandwich so messy that the task of actually trying to keep it together is a fool's errand.
And the Mets? The Mets are a sandwich comprised of the finest ingredients. Sliced avocado, bacon, roast beef, perhaps some manzanilla olives, anything you can think of. And then, with the energy one would put toward defacing a Rembrandt, a smothering of ketchup. A thing of mammoth potential slingshots back to mediocrity. Perhaps the ketchup is Oliver Perez, yes, and perhaps Wright is a pickle slice, patiently waiting to be lost in the confusion and devoured by the rest of the league. Enjoy your season and this half-jointed curiosity you call a language, sir.
Admittedly, though, a peanut butter/honey/banana/oatmeal sandwich does sound pretty good.