A sultan, a king and a judge who once played for the Chicago Bears

President Donald J. Trump will be trying to buy our love on Friday, what with his presentation of Presidential Medals of Freedom to seven individuals, including some long deceased whose celebrity status is too great to be ridiculed.

Superimpose Trump's face over that of Nixon?

Seriously, who’s going to bad mouth Babe Ruth or Elvis Presley. The cultural celebrities of baseball and rock ‘n’ roll whose levels reached so high that they remain exalted even though they’ve both been deceased for decades.

AT THE VERY least, there’s no chance that either man will show up at the White House and express sarcastic thoughts at the White House. Seriously, if “the Babe” were still alive, I think he still was having a better year than the president.

And maybe Trump thinks he can have those old photographs of Presley at the White House with then-President Richard Nixon digitally altered, with his own face (and always-tacky hairdo) superimposed over that of Nixon so that Trump is now shaking hands with “the king of rock ‘n’ roll.”

Whether Chuck Berry is the one who really deserves that label because he went to jail for his musical art (as comedian Tommy Chong once suggested in one of his films with Richard “Cheech” Marin) is a topic of discussion for a future commentary.

But seriously, Trump thinks we need to have his official recognition granted to Ruth and Presley for them to have any cultural significance. Which is more about the pomposity of the Trump ego than anything else.

Had better years than just about all presidents

BESIDES, TRUMP IS more than willing to use these ancient celebrities to try to give himself a good day in the news cycle.

Not that it’s unheard of for this honor, which has been given out since the days of John F. Kennedy as president, to be awarded to athletes. In recent years, Barack Obama gave it to basketball stars Michael Jordan and Kareem-Abdul Jabbar.

And as far as baseball players are concerned, former President George W. Bush (a former owner of the Texas Rangers ball club) gave the medal posthumously to Roberto Clemente, the Pittsburgh Pirates star who was killed in a plane crash on New Year’s Eve 1972 while trying to deliver medical supplies and other relief to victims of an earthquake in Nicaragua.

George W. Bush honored Clemente's greatness

So it may be technically accurate to say the award has been given out posthumously. Although one has to admit, Trump honoring Ruth (who I suspect would have viewed as Trump as some little pygmy trying to bloat his own ego off of Ruth’s aura) feels different than when Obama in 2014 gave the medals to James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner – Civil Rights activists who in 1964 were murdered in Mississippi because of the local sentiment that they were “damn Yankees” meddling into something that locals thought was none of their business – as in challenging the Southern “way of life” that thought segregation was acceptable.

FOR ALL I know, Trump probably wishes he could rescind those medals because they would offend the sensibilities of many of those who wear the ridiculous red caps that publicly identify themselves as backers of this “Age of Trump” we’re now in.

Page a Chicago-tied medal recipient

Of course, there will be other medal recipients on Friday, including Alan Page.

Remember him? He’s the former pro football player who actually finished up his career with the Chicago Bears, and also played his college football at Notre Dame. He went on to a legal career, and in fact wound up being elected a judge to the Minnesota Supreme Court.

But considering how much Trump likes to dis anything connected to Chicago, it wouldn’t shock me that his stint at Soldier Field will be amongst the last things mentioned when Page accepts his medal.

IT SHOULD BE remembered that this medal is meant to give presidents a chance to share in some celebrity glamour. Trump would hardly be the first president to try to score political points with people for non-political actions.

SCALIA: Bigger than 'the Babe' or Elvis?

Heck, when Obama gave the medal to Jordan in 2016, he made a point of mentioning how he was now in the presence of a star of the movie “Space Jam.” Even though anybody who actually remembers the film knows that Bugs Bunny was the real star of that partially-animated flick.

Or there’s another posthumous recipient whom Trump will honor – former Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, whose long-time stint on the high court may be worthy of historic recognition.

Although I’m sure that Trump thinks Scalia’s significance is that his death, along with the partisan political battle that ensued, enabled Trump to have a Supreme Court vacancy to fill on Day One of his presidency!

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EXTRA: Cubs – 4, Pirates – 0

Somewhere, I sense that the spirit of Ernie Banks is happy, while that of Roberto Clemente is appalled (and rattling off a rant in Spanish rivaling anything that ever came from the mouth of Desi Arnaz on "I Love Lucy"), at the Wednesday night playoff game that gave the Chicago Cubs the opportunity to be the team that gets included with the three National League division winners for a chance at the league championship.

Or if you want to take it back a few generations, Mordecai Brown is laughing it up a bit at Honus Wagner’s expense. Gabby Harnett feeling glee over the Waner brothers (both Paul and Lloyd).

MAYBE EVEN 19^th Century star Cap Anson is feeling some joy (although perhaps wondering who let all those “colored boys” out onto the playing field).

In my mind, I can see how all of them have been agitating (playfully, of course) over whose ball club was going to be successful this week.

Now back to the earthly realm of existence that we all occupy; the one where Cubs pitcher Jake Arrieta provoked a bench-clearing brawl Wednesday night after the Pirates hit him with a pitch.

ARNAZ: Hearing his laugh at Cubs win

I don’t know if the Cubs are capable of beating St. Louis, Los Angeles or New York in the rounds of playoffs that will resume for Chicago on Friday against the Cardinals. But I do sense that Wednesday’s victory will be enough for Cubs fans to feel some sort of moral victory that we’ll hear about for years to come!

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What does it take to achieve literal sainthood – do Serra, Clemente qualify?

What does it take to become an officially-recognized saint of the Catholic church? It seems the criteria are ever evolving to the point where future saints aren’t going to be universally recognized.

With our current society being in a mode of wanting to turn every possible issue into a politically partisan brawl, how long will it be until our choice of saints becomes an issue to pick a fight over?

WHAT MOTIVATED ME to think about this was a pair of stories I stumbled across last week – one about the fact that Father Junipero Serra will be canonized as a saint. The other about the fact that certain people want to make a saint of one-time Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder Roberto Clemente.

For those who are scratching their heads at the mention of Serra, he’s a character most of us encountered briefly in elementary school history classes. He was a Catholic friar who helped create the settlements that have evolved into California’s major cities.

Which means he helped create the first European settlements in what is now the United States. Although my own memories recall being in a fifth grade class in which none of my classmates could even fathom how to pronounce Serra’s name.

Serra helped to bring the Catholic church and European ways to the indigenous peoples who previously had called the west coast their home. We certainly wouldn’t have our modern-day society if not for his efforts.

OF COURSE, THE Los Angeles Times reported that is what ticks some people off to the point where they’re going to resent the fact that Pope Francis has given the 18^th century friar the highest recognition the church can bestow upon his memory.

Because the Catholic church, in its desire to spread its influence and “save the savages” from eternal damnation, imposed such pressure to assimilate that the tribal influences were devastated – along with many of the individuals to whom foreign diseases brought by the church’s individuals wound up being deadly.

Serra – the saint who created our society, or some sort of Catholic killer?!? I’m sure there are those who can come up with even more over-the-top rhetoric when expressing their contempt for the lack of a native presence in California.

Then again, there are those who are all too eager to believe that California – and just about everything west of St. Louis – was a vast land of emptiness until the white settlers came along in the 19^th century.

I’M SURE THEY’LL be the ones who will aggressively push Serra’s sainthood because it fits their notion of what the world ought to be.

Although I wonder what they’ll think of the notion of slugger Sammy Sosa’s idol also being recognized as a Catholic saint? It hasn’t happened yet – and may never happen. These kinds of things take time.

But the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported how the producer of a documentary film about Clemente’s life now wants to document the “miracles” he performed so that he can get official Catholic recognition.

Clemente was a ball player from 1955 until 1972 and is likely the best ball player the Pittsburgh Pirates ever had – whose career, and life, came to a sudden end when the airplane he was riding while filled with goods for victims of a Nicaragua earthquake crashed into the ocean near San Juan.

CLEMENTE’S BODY WAS never recovered. Although his memory became all-the-more elevated. Baseball gave Roberto its highest honor when it eliminated the five-year waiting period and immediately inducted him into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.

Apparently, that isn’t good enough for some.

Richard Rossi, who made the documentary and is trying to build actual support for sainthood, cites evidence of Clemente’s knowledge of pressure points and how they could be used to help ease pain. Does that amount to the ability to heal the sick? By that definition, just about every chiropractor qualifies for sainthood!

But how many chiropractors could win the World Series MVP (in 1971, against the Baltimore Orioles) while also inspiring the Latin American community? Or create a culture along the West Coast?

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