I was just reading about the kid from Brooklyn who caught Barry Bonds' "historic" 456th home run ball. Yawn.

As the specially marked baseball landed [in the right-center field bleachers], dozens of fans wrestled for it and the promise of riches it carried. Suddenly, the metal bleachers vibrated with energy. Grunts, cheers and the cries of frightened children broke the silence as parents sought to shield their youngsters from the chaos.

In the middle of it all was 22-year-old New Yorker Matt Murphy, who emerged from beneath the pile holding the ball Bonds hit for career home run No. 756. His face was bloodied and his clothes stretched and torn from his battle in the bleachers.

The ball's estimated worth, according to the article: about half a million.  It'll probably bring more.  Because, not only are people stupid enough to fight like animals for a baseball, people are stupid enough to pay millions for it (look at Mark McGwire's 70th).  

His home run balls might as well be worth something, I guess, since the set of balls he was born with aren't worth a damn, having shrunk to the size of peas from all those steroids he was taking so he could hit those other balls out of the park.

But isn't it funny how everything is about finding that golden ticket.  Everything's about getting lucky, being discovered, winning the lottery.  And that's the real story here.  Nobody cares about Bonds' balls.  It's the kid in the bleachers that's gonna make a million from one of 'em that's the real American success story.

I mean, they rush this kid—who managed, bloodied face and torn clothes aside, to hang onto that ball—out of the stadium surrounded by armed guards. 

Because while it takes a measure of skill, stick-to-itness, and a steady diet of steroids to hit 456 balls out of the park, it's pure luck and brute force that lets you leave the park holding a home run ball worth a million bucks. It could've been anybody.  And that right there's the American Dream, my friends.