This contest provided a rare opportunity to collaborate with our own Bob Mankoff. In his cartoon, two boys are getting ready to play or practice baseball. One is normal-sized, wearing a glove on his left hand, and staring at the body of the other one, who has a bat and is built like a tank. The muscular one is speaking.
In his tell-all book, Juiced, Jose Canseco wrote that as many as 80% of baseball players used steroids, which increase muscle mass and strength and were finally banned in 2005. My first captions allude to the problem of doping in baseball:
- “What are you implying?”
- “If we need a company to sponsor our team, I could talk to Pfizer.”
I next suggested that the boy holding the bat looks more like a football player than a baseball player: “I usually play contact sports.”
I then noted that someone built like a truck would be quite intimidating to baseball players:
- “I get walked a lot.”
- “Most teams just forfeit.”
Finally, a pun: “I’m with the Not-So-Little League.”
Now let’s see how you did.
There were so many steroid-related entries I had to break the best of them down into subcategories.
Some dealt with the attempt to get around the ban on performance-enhancing drugs:
- “I need you to pee in a cup for me.”
- “They don’t test for that in Little League.”
- “Just out of curiosity, what’s the team’s drug testing policy?”
- “Why did they decide to start testing us for steroids?”
- “Our last practice was all about plausible deniability.”
A related entry addressed the punctuation mark used to indicate that a baseball player’s accomplishment was achieved on steroids: “My heroes all have asterisks.”
Other entries addressed the drug’s unfortunate side effects:
- “I don’t have any balls. I thought you brought them.”
- “I hope you brought balls.”
There were a couple of decent puns:
- “My dad owns the pharm system.”
- “I was called up from the pharm team.”
And one of you suggested that the bulked-up player thinks no one knows about his drug use: “I have a secret I’ve never told anyone before.”
These captions all suggest that the batter has or could hit the ball really hard and far:
- “Got another ball?”
- “You ducked well today.”
- “I’m sorry I broke your baseball.”
- “We’re gonna need a bigger yard.”
- “Why should I have to pay for the balls?”
- “Sorry. I didn’t realize that was your last ball.”
- “Gosh, I didn’t mean to kill your outfielder.”
- “You won’t be using that glove.”
I’d like that seventh caption better without the word “Gosh,” and the last entry would be better if the word “using” were “needing.”
The following caption is close to one of my own: “Welcome to the Not So Little League.”
And this caption—“Next to the chemical plant. And where do you live?”— reminds me of the winning entry in a New Yorker Caption Contest that featured an announcer standing between two giant boxers (you see them only from the knees down) and saying, “And in this corner, also hailing from Chernobyl …”
Some variation on this line—“Hey! My eyes are up here.”—is often submitted when the cartoon suggests that a woman is offended by a man who’s staring at her breasts, but it works here, too. And the twist is clever.
A related entry suggests that the batter is tired of being objectified: “Tell your mom to stop whistling.”
Like I did, several of you noted that the batter’s size might alarm his opponents:
- “My strategy is 100% intimidation.”
- “I don’t actually play. I just like to intimidate.”
- “I can’t hit, but the pitchers are so intimidated they walk me.”
The next two captions suggest that the batter’s size would be an asset in a fight:
- “I’m training for a bench-clearing brawl.”
- “I wanna work on storming the mound.”
The last entry would be better if “wanna” were “want to” and “storming” was “charging.” Batters charge the mound. They don’t storm it.
As I did, several of you thought the batter’s size indicated that he’s a football player unfamiliar with our national pastime:
- “How do I make a touchdown with this?”
- “Are you sure there’s no wide receiver?”
- “So where’s the end zone?”
Here are the best references to baseball movies:
- “If you’re built, they will come.”
- “I’m in a league of my own.”
Here’s the best pandemic joke: “I thought I was in the vaccine line…”
And here are the best ironic entries:
- “Sorry, have to go…ballet practice.”
- “It’s all in the wrist.”
- “My specialty is bunting.”
- “I can only bunt.”
This next caption is similar to the last two entries but unironic: “No, I don’t bunt.”
Being huge and muscular huge has its advantages, but these next two entries focus on the drawbacks:
- “If I could move, I’d hit every ball a mile.”
- “Are my shoes tied?”
As I often do, I will conclude with a few strong captions that don’t fit neatly into any category:
- “Maybe you just need to try harder.”
- “Now can I be on your team?”
- “Too much?”
Well done. I can’t remember the last time I highlighted this many entries (44). I’m guessing a lot of you really want to see your caption on a Mankoff cartoon. If it were solely up to me—it’s not—that honor would go to whoever submitted, “I need you to pee in a cup for me.”
Lawrence Wood has won The New Yorker’s Cartoon Caption Contest a record-setting seven times and been a finalist four other times. He has collaborated with New Yorker cartoonists Peter Kuper, Lila Ash, Felipe Galindo Gomez, and Harry Bliss (until Bliss tossed him aside, as anyone would, to collaborate with Steve Martin). Nine of his collaborations have appeared in The New Yorker, and one is included in The New Yorker Encyclopedia of Cartoons.