Back in the land of the free (refill)

For the third July running, I am in Houston, Texas, which pretty much guarantees the reinstatement of any weight I may have lost recently. A few nights ago I saw on TV a man nearly as fat as a couple of days eating Texan makes me feel. His name is Prince Fielder and he offically weighs 268lb (and the rest). And here's the thing, he is a professional sportsman: a first baseman for the Milwaukee Brewers baseball team. 

He was on ESPN participating in the Home Run Derby in front of a full house in St Louis. This consisted of Fielder and several slenderer rivals slugging tame pitches as far as possible. Not exactly riveting even by baseball's low standard of thrills, but the fans were lapping it up. Whoever catches a home run ball gets to keep it and their value seemed not to diminish even as the zillionth plopped into the spare hand of a man wrestling with a burger and coke, or a boy in an outsized hat. I assumed this joust of the juggernauts was the warm-up for a league game but I was wrong. It was the final of a huge competition and Fielder won a trophy not for being the hugest, but for hitting the most home runs.

The football equivalent would be rewarding the player who can score most penalty kicks against a blindfolded goalkeeper. Then again, a footballer as huge as Prince Fielder wouldn't even be able to manage the run-up. But that's the thing about the USA: conventions are turned on their head. You don't need a brain to be president, you don't need to be fit to be a sportsman. It's a land of opportunity for all.