Maybe Their Next Hit Is ‘The Writin’ King’

I tossed and turned and tossed and turned.

The phone rang. I reached over and mumbled, “Hello?”

“Hello!” said a cheerful voice. “This is Disney!”

“Jack Disney, from Santa Anita?”

“No. Disney!”

“Walt Disney--the company?”

“That’s us!”

“Well, Diz, it’s 5 o’clock in the morning. What do you want?”

The voice said, “We’re buying you!”

I said, “Say what?”

“We are buying you.”

I cleaned the wax from my ear and said, “Disney is buying my newspaper?”

“No. We’re buying you ! We’re buying everything. Hockey teams. Baseball teams. TV networks. Movies, radio, theme parks. Now we thought we should buy a sportswriter.”

“What?”

“We need sportswriters. Disney doesn’t own any sportswriters. When we make movies about sportswriters, we always use fake sportswriters. Now we can use real sportswriters. Real sportswriters are cheaper than fake sportswriters.”

“So, you bought me.”

“Yes, and for a nice price.”

“Nineteen billion?”

“Nineteen dollars.”

“That’s disappointing.”

“Your editors asked for 20. We talked them down.”

I had mixed feelings about Disney buying me. Yes, I did like becoming part of a sports and entertainment empire. No, I didn’t like being dropped by my company like Dumbo.

I asked, “You won’t call my column the Mighty Mike or anything like that?”

The voice said, “No way! Well, we’ll see.”

“So what else is Disney buying?”

“Well, we have our hockey team.”

“Yes, inspired by the Emilio Estevez movie of the same name.”

“We have our baseball team.”

“Yes, as soon as Gene Autry splits up the loot.”

“We’re thinking about football.”

I asked, “Disney is going to buy a football team for Los Angeles?”

The voice said, “Yes, but don’t tell anybody.”

“Which team will you buy?”

“New York’s.”

“Which one, the Giants or the Jets?”

“Both. Shhh. It’s a secret.”

I began to get excited. I said, “How about pro basketball?”

“We would really like to bring a professional team to Anaheim.”

“Will Disney buy the Clippers?”

“We would really like to bring a professional team to Anaheim.”

I told the Disney person that the purchase of ABC television probably meant big changes in sports TV.

The voice said, “Yes.”

“Like on ‘Monday Night Football’?”

The voice said, “Yes.”

“Michaels, Gifford, Dierdorf?”

The voice said, “Mickey, Goofy, Donald.”

I asked about ABC’s involvement in baseball.

The voice said, “Oh. Is ABC still involved in baseball?”

“Yes.”

“Well, we’ll probably change the starting times. This is Disney, you know.”

I asked, “What time will baseball games start?”

“Right after school--4 p.m.”

I could see that Disney would be making big, big changes in the way we watch sports. In the way we watch everything.

And now they owned me.

The voice said, “We’ll be opening Sportswriter World. And later maybe Euro-Sportswriter World.”

I liked it.

The voice said, “We’ll call it The Unhappiest Place on Earth.”

I really liked it.

The voice said, “We’ll make movies with cartoon sportswriters. Beauty and the Sportswriter. Snow White and the Seven Sportswriters. 101 Sportswriters.”

I was overjoyed.

I said, “Oh, yes, Disney! Buy me! Buy me!”

That’s when I woke up.