...Something For Everyone

See the heading? That's Pepsi's slogan, or at least one of them. If I lead the league in strikeouts this year (highly doubtful), Pepsi leads the soft drink industry in slogans. I'm not really complaining. Not anymore at least. Let me start at the beginning...

I arrived at a New York City loft in the mid-twenties on Friday morning with Alyssa and Grace in tow. At the last minute, Grace had decided she did want to appear in the commercial. "I need the money," she had said. I told her the money was going to her college fund. "I'm not going to college then," she said. Then, I told her, the money will go into a when-I-say-you-can-have-it fund. She made a half-smile, not because I'm funny to her. I explained that the money will go somewhere, but she won't have access to it until she's 21; 35 if I want her to stick around in 6 years to clip my toenails on a daily basis. I told her not to ask any of her little friends to try to hack into Vanessa and my accounts either. Even though it's clear to me the geeks will inherit the earth, I don't want them to touch my money. "I don't have any friends," she said. Good, I said. Let's keep it that way. She came along and didn't talk for the rest of the day (except when her phone went off). Teenagers, you can't live with 'em and... Well, you can't live with 'em. Very moody.

At the loft, it was explained to us by David, the director of the commercial, that we would be doing a spot for the Lipton Brisk brands. I stopped him right there. "Pepsi," I said. "My contract is for Pepsi and a flagship brand." David apologized, said Pepsi corp. had made some changes. Q-scores... Focus groups... Gut instinct... Phrases were thrown around like Frisbees. I asked David if he had any idea what he was talking about. He said no. Those were just things he'd heard in a conference call the day before.

I called up Jack Perry, agent to the superstars - and me. The conversation went like this:

Me: It's me.
Jack: You at the Pepsi shoot?
Me: Yeah. They want us to do it for a ready-to-drink tea.
Jack: I heard.
Me: You did? When?
Jack: Doesn't matter.
Me: Oh, I guess it doesn't then. You're fired.
Jack: No I'm not.
Me: Then tell me why we aren't getting the Pepsi treatment.
Jack: You're too old, you're going bald, you're not a star - just a former star rehabbing. They don't know if you'll come back this season and mean anything or not.
Me: Good thing they're paying me millions of dollars.
Jack: That didn't change.
Me: So Lipton Brisk, huh?
Jack: It was either that or Propel Water.
Me: Never heard of it.
Jack: That's what I'm saying.

I flipped my phone closed, took a deep breath, and decided to live with it. Sure I felt old and inadequate. But there's no such thing as a Viagra to appease self-loathing. "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right Dad?" That was Alyssa's take on the whole thing. Not sure what Grace's take was. She wasn't talking. Her eyes were in perpetual "roll stage." Love that.

I went back to David, the director. "What do you want us to do?"

They gave me a generic baseball uniform as Pepsi is not the official anything of the National Baseball League. Just vertical pinstripes that kind of match our team's pinstripes if you squint real hard for a few minutes and turn down the lights to strobe. Alyssa and Grace were given matching uniforms, although theirs were a little tighter than mine. Strange, I thought, since I'm the one who was 15 pounds overweight 8 weeks ago. Have I lost that many pounds? I tricked myself into thinking I had so I wouldn't have to deal with my girls being used as the sexy part of the ad. I considered not talking to anyone the rest of the day, but it would've been hard for me to say my lines. Instead, I plowed through and pretended I was happy.

Five hours later, we were done. We got to see a rough edit of the spot and congratulate ourselves for a job well done. My fake smile was perfect. You would've loved it. Nobody had any idea how depressed I felt.

Except Alyssa and Grace.

Here's a little of our conversation in the car on the way home:

Alyssa: Dad, you didn't look bald.
Grace: Mmm hmm.
Alyssa: And the soda machine in our school cafeteria has Brisk teas. I think.
Grace: Mmm.
Alyssa: Was today the first time you realized you weren't 25 years old anymore?
Grace: Mmm?

When I was 25, I won 19 games and led the league with 269 strikeouts. My first championship came that year, in Chicago. I earned $10 million in endorsements that off season and filmed a spot with Michael Jordan. Remember? The "Swish Spot" it was called. Third commercial to air during the Super Bowl. I have it on VHS somewhere, but I bet you can find it on YouTube. I was the toast of Chicago. I was young and had my life ahead of me...

When I was 25, Alyssa and Grace were born. I had been married already for 4 years. We had a house, I walked a dog, put out the trash (when I was home). We had car payments and mortgage payments and paid off Vanessa's student loans... I was doing responsible, adult things at 25 too. Just like now.

In fact, if you compare me at 25 to me now, there are only a few key differences:

1. Less hair, more body fat.
2. I play in New York, not Chicago.
3. My girls are considered sex objects in ads and I'm the "father figure"

I've lived a pretty good life. Lots of wins, lots of money, still married with two kids - one of whom is talking to me. Still have my parents, although I'd disown my father if I could find the right paperwork. I've still got fans who like me, who want my autograph. I'm not asked to sign many boobs anymore; instead my rookie card, from 1988, is the thing I'm asked to sign the most. Yes, the occasional boob gets stuffed into my line of vision, but it probably belongs to a grandmother. I'll sign it because I know it'll make the woman's friends down at the home all giddy.

In a way, I guess I've given a little something to everyone. Wins to the people in the past. Life to my two darling daughters. Agita to today's management and the media. A paycheck to Andy, my personal trainer. Fun to today's kids who are all "Internet savvy" and read blogs. Maybe Brisk was the right brand for me. Maybe I'll call Pepsi and let them know they made the right decision. Sales are going to catapult to heights unknown because of our association, I'll tell them. Just you wait!

Which they'll do as they tell each other it's gut-check time, find the results of my new Q-scores and see what the focus groups say about the ads. I'm under no illusions what those people will say. "Give us more of his kids. He's showing too much skin on the top of his head."

Yeah, they'll think I'm giving a little something too much. Maybe they can airbrush in a hat for me.