This is how Rick Reilly's latest column, which is about Derek Jeter, begins:
To Derek Jeter's kids (whenever you come along):
You were born too late to know your father the way we did, so I want to take just a minute to let you know what he meant to us.
So, yeah, that's what you're in for here. You can read the middle part if you want, but you already know how this goes: Reilly digs into the catalogue of Jeter's Manly Baseball Accomplishments and presents a sort of drunken version of the same paint-by-number column that sportswriters have been writing about Jeter for many years. At one point he goes so far as to claim that Jeter was "the best player in baseball for a good 10 years straight," something neither Jeter nor Jeter's mom nor Joe Torre nor the shade of George Steinbrenner nor any of the innumerable New York hacks who have a vested financial interest in the myth of Jeter would ever say in any context other than mocking out of it national sportswriters who clearly don't actually follow baseball. Anyway! You can pass all that; just skip to the end.
He was ours for 20 years, but he's yours now, and I just wanted you to know how lucky you are.
Derek Jeter's kids are never going to actually read this, Rick. No one from the future is, unless it somehow turns that aliens come and destroy everything our species has ever put to paper or pixel except for this, in which case they'll just congratulate each other on a job well done.