Name: Joe Hardy
Team: Washington Senators

Have you ever wanted anything SO BAD you’d even make a deal with the devil?

We know Faust and Daniel Webster did…but there’s one more who hit Broadway first, and then the silver screen. Joe Hardy is a transplanted Midwesterner from Hannibal, Missouri – or at least, that’s how his offical biography for the Senators reads.

“Damn Yankees”, based on the book The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant, revolves around Mr. Hardy and his fervent wish for the Washington Senators (who, oddly enough, went to Minnesota to be the Minnesota Twins) to win the World Series. Joe is a middle aged, fervent Senators fan and makes the statement that he’d sell his soul if the Senators could win the pennant.

Fate obliges.

The Devil (called Mr. Applegate here) makes a deal with Hardy – in exchange for Hardy’s soul, Mr. Applegate will make him a big-league player. However, Hardy asks for an escape clause if it turns out to be a bad deal. Therefore, that’s how the middle-aged fan turns into the youthful baseball star.

Applegate throws his own wrench into it in the form of Lola. Basically, Lola’s job is to distract Hardy from thoughts of his wife back home in Missouri.

Lots of twists and turns in the plot…he actually rents a room in his old house (his wife, Meg, doesn’t know where her husband has gone or about his pact with the Devil.) He’s accused of being a no-good player named Shifty McCoy. He misses his wife and is trying to avoid the temptation of Lola.

And all because of baseball.

I picked Joe Hardy because I can understand how hard you can want something, and you would be willing to sell your soul for it. I think all of us have been there.

However, I am a Midwesterner through-and-through. I’m not sure how to feel about that, but there you go.

Other Fictional DC Residents