Dear Rob Manfred

Editors note: So we may or may not have been digging through the trash of Major-League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred’s home last Thursday. And we may or may not have found the following letter of support, printed on what appears to be a Dot Matrix printer, and authored by one of the few people in the world who knows what it’s like to be the commissioner of a major sport: Roger Goodell of the National Football League.
Dear Roger. Sorry, that’s my name! Let me try that again.
Dear Rod.
I don’t know if you know me. My name is Roger and I have Paul Tagleeuhbews old job. You may have heard of him. He’s going into the NHL Hall of Fame.
I just wanted to write and say thank you for all you have done for me. After several seasons of players abusing their wives, former players going public with their so called “head trauma“ and a group of officials who consistently make the wrong call even when given three chances to make the right one… you have done what few people would could do: take the attention away from me.
Your proposal to add teams to the playoffs while making the good teams wait long enough to get rusty was pure genius. And then, THEN! your decision to not take away the World Series title from teams that were known sheep, sorry I’m dictating this into my flip phone. That should say “known to cheat” was also incredible. But then you took it to a whole new level when you tried to make some sort of “It’s not whether you win but how you play the game” comment about your own trophy, which you then equated to scrap metal … I mean, wowsers.
I had already become a fan after reading the book Baseball Cop about how you took on the DEA during the steroids investigation and totally fubared their investigation so baseball could look like the hero. I wish I could screw up something to make us look good.
And let’s not forget how awesome it was when MLB bought the company that makes baseballs, changed the way they were made to allow homeruns to leave the yard at a record rate and then claimed not to know how it all happened, as if a mystical unicorn infiltrated the Rawlings factory and touched each sphere with a sprinkling of pixie dust.
I also wanted to let you know that Gary Bettman might be sending you a little something as well. He is looking forward to no longer being the most booed commissioner in the history of sports. So thanks again.
I’m not sure how this could get any better for the rest of us but I am hoping and praying that you are coming up with more amazing ideas.
As Leslie Frazier once said in the movie Naked Airplane, “We’re all counting on you.”
Your pal,
Roger.
P.S. Is there anything you can do to get Shoeless Pete Jackson into the Hall of Fame? That would be awesome.