Cairo's Champions

This edition of Cairo’s Champions goes out to all those Major League Baseball teams in search of pitching this offseason.

Newspaper delivery services have existed for as long as there have been newspapers. Like bread, people need their morning fill of news, propaganda, editorials, and sports. For governments, getting such “news” to people is as important as having a whole ministry dedicated to creating it.

And, thus, a distribution network was born. In Canada, the average employee in this network wears a baseball hat, rides a bike, things girls have cooties, and likely wants to be an astronaut. In Egypt, that same employee has a family, drives a motorbike with a sidecar, and has a rocket-propelled arm.

It’s rather impressive, really. At about 4 AM, these guys tour around the city, their sidecars filled with the day’s newsprint. Towering on either side are the ubiquitous eight-storey apartment buildings. It’s a menacing challenge for the humble paper guy: getting the newspapers to the upper levels. But do not underestimate him and his brethren; they are up to the task every single morning.

At pre-memorized spots on the road, the guy stops, grabs a newspaper from the sidecar, and then flings it up to the 6th level while still straddling the bike. When I first say this, I was exasperated. “Whoa…did I just see that? He just flung a paper to the 6th storey using all arm and no body. I wonder if paper boys have a high incidence of arm surgery.” I started to ponder if I could perform that same task. Perhaps, but my arm would need warming up before going out into the cool night.

The unfortunate thing is that people are usually asleep at 4 AM and are, therefore, completely oblivious to the talent exhibited by the guy that provides them with their morning entertainment.

Now, if these guys could hit a 95 MPH fastball, they’d be the hottest commodity on the free agent market. But then the government would struggle to distribute its skewed message.