There are probably going to be MEG sequels, which means we have to advocate for Pat Burrell

The top-grossing movie in the world last week was The MEG, which is a movie about a prehistoric shark-dinosaur monster. I wasn’t planning on seeing The MEG in theaters, but I was going to catch the Criterion Collection blu-ray. It’s doing very well in the United States, and it’s doing extremely well internationally, which means there will be a sequel. Possibly two sequels.

If we are incredibly, incredibly lucky there will be a third sequel. And we have work to do if it’s going to be as great as it deserves to be.

See, the fourth book in the series, MEG: Primal Waters, is constructed around plot points that involve former Philadelphia Phillies slugger Pat “the Bat” Burrell and his attempt to break the all-time home run record, held by Barry Bonds.

Atti turns off the television. “Grandma says I get to go home soon. She says she’ll take me to see Pat Burrell break the record.”

“Cool.” He points to a piece of toast. “You eating that?”

WAIT, FUCK YOUR TOAST. GET BACK TO THE PART WHERE PAT BURRELL IS ABOUT TO BREAK A RECORD.

The idea of Burrell breaking the record is inspired. He was already 27 years old and had just 127 home runs when the book was written in 2004. That’s 127 more home runs than I’ve hit, but the point stands. He would have needed to average about 48 home runs in every season until he was 40 just to get to Hank Aaron’s mark, which wasn’t the record he was chasing in the book. He was chasing Bonds, who made it to 759. We’re talking about something close to a 50-homer pace for more than a decade.

To which I say this: Hell, yes.

If you’re going to write a book about a prehistoric sharkosaur, don’t bother asking a nerd what’s likely to happen. Dump a whole bunch of screw-it into the pot and make Pat the Bat the greatest hitter in baseball history. I respect this so much.

The whole point of having a hitter chase history is that he does it in San Francisco, where the home run can land in the water. In MEGALODON-INFESTED WATERS. You can see the foundation that author Steve Alten was trying to lay. He wanted people in the water, anticipating hope from above and receiving DEATH FROM BELOW.

Here’s a scene with a divorced couple arguing about who gets to take the boat to McCovey Cove.

“Shut up! Since when do you give a damn about fishing?”

“I don’t. We’re going to Pac Bell to see the Giants.”

“You mean, you’re trying to catch Pat Burrell’s home run ball.”

“They say it’ll be worth three and five million.” Spencer says, eyeballing Ronald’s equipment. “Apparently, you’re after the same prize.”

“You’re damn right, and when I get that ball, the two of you get nothing. Now get off my boat!”

This has the potential to be an arthouse flick, if you think about it. A couple and an ex-husband, each involved in a quixotic race to catch a right-handed homer that lands in the San Francisco Bay, even though there has has absolutely never been a right-handed homer that has landed in the water there. It’s basically Waiting for Godot, but with the potential to be a creepy, Hitchcockian thriller.

Maybe Ronald knows that right-handed hitters can’t hit a homer into the water, but he’s taking the opportunity to hit the new boyfriend with an oar and push his unconscious body off the boat.

However, this semantic baseball quibble is addressed:

Twenty-seven percent of Burrell’s home runs at Pac Bell have been hit over the right-field bleachers, thirty-four percent of those being mammoth shots that have made it into the bay. With the odds of catching Burrell’s record-breaking home run several hundred times better than hitting the California lottery, nearly everyone in the Bay Area with a watercraft is converging on McCovey Cove

I’m starting to think ...

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... the MEG franchise isn’t based entirely on science.

Either that, or the real world is trash.

Going with a combination of the two and moving on. When Burrell comes to the plate in the first inning, Spencer is busy having sex with Ronald’s ex-wife in the still-disputed boat, which is a perfect homage to Burrell. Nothing could possibly set the scene better.

Alas, that at-bat was not the one that broke the record. It was a flyout to deep center, which caused someone to throw a dummy ball into the water. Our own Jon Bois was quoted anonymously in this section:

“Hey, it was a fake out, a dork ball! Knock it off, it wasn’t even a homer!”

In the fourth inning, Burrell makes some magic.

“And there’s a long fly ball to deep right field ... Perry Meth is way back ... he’s at the warning track ... and that ball is outta here! A two-run monster shot for Pat Burrell, who has just become baseball’s all-time leading home run leader! Wow.”

After Burrell hits the home run, the ball lands in the water, and in a wild scrum for it, Spencer’s ex-wife and her boyfriend start biting him and pulling him into the water. Just as Spencer escapes drowning, the Megalodon eats six people, including the ex-wife and her boyfriend.

The final paragraph of the chapter is absolutely beautiful.

They race down the aisle heading for the parking lot, leaving behind the shrieking crowd and the thundering helicopters and the home run music still blasting from a thousand speakers, and the stunned commissioner of Major League Baseball, who stands in horror in his skybox seat, wondering whether he should call the game an inning before it becomes official.

This is a scene that is so integral to the plot that there’s almost no reason to think it would be changed for the movie. If there’s a fourth MEG movie, it will require a home-run chase at AT&T Park.

Except, friends, I come with bad news. Our dreams of Pat the Bat becoming the all-time leading home run leader on the silver screen are in jeopardy. In the paperback version of MEG: Primal Waters, Pat Burrell is gone, replaced by Ryan Howard.

Which is also cool and funny, sure. But, still. He’s not Pat the Bat.

Perhaps the change stemmed from when the author attempted to give a signed copy of the book to Burrell, who refused it. That led Alten to tear out the signature and re-gift the book to Jim Thome, which is exactly what any of us would have done. It’s also possible that, offended at the slight, any of us would have made the switch to Howard.

Still, our demands are these:

If these demands are not met, we reserve the right to boycott this movie, which may or may not be made in the next four to 10 years, assuming civilization has not collapsed.

We are a simple people, with simple demands. The success of the first MEG movie suggests there will be sequels. If the franchise should get to the fourth installment, Pat Burrell absolutely must be a part of it.

“Once again, if you’re just joining us, fans at tonight’s game between the Phils and Giants witnessed history when Pat Burrell broke Barry Bonds’s all-time record for home runs, only to see play stopped when the once-captive Megalodon shark known as Angel brutally attacked boaters in McCovey —”

Mac turns the radio off. “Not a sighting in eighteen years, now we’ve got Megalodons coming out the ying-yang.”

This is not negotiable. There are Megalodons coming out the ying-yang, and the only person who can stop them is Pat Burrell. Thank you for your support.