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Bizarro Baseball
August 18, 2008
I want to talk about how upside down and backwards I think professional sports are getting. We can focus on MLB alone, and better yet, let’s imagine how crazy things could get in the near future if certain trends continue. Let me welcome you to what I’m calling:
Bizarro-Baseball World.
Manny Ramirez has signed a 1-year, $100 million dollar contract. Apparently, Jose Conseco was so jealous and embittered by the deal and Ramirez’s subsequent negative steroids tests, he has decided to create a new VH1 reality show called, “Bash Brothers II” [premise: A-Rod and Jose Get Bored With Sleeping With the Same Women, So They Start Sleeping With Each Other—Crazy Antics and Operations Ensue]. Ramirez has also grudgingly agreed to stipulations stating that his hair can be no longer than his butt, due to the fact that his knee-length dreads got tangled in his legs too many times last season as he skipped from base to base. As Ramirez has been restricted by the MLB to sign a deal longer than 1 year because of how he has left too many fans in different cities too emotionally devastated, several GMs are reportedly organizing a meeting to draw straws to figure out who will have to sign the slugger next year.
In other news, Bud Selig has officially announced the approval of the Ump-Attack rule. In light of the shocking veto of Instant Replay, Selig has decreed that each team will be allowed one, irreproachable attack on an umpire a year. Teams will have to announce their Designated Hot Head before the start of each season and so far; Milton Bradley and Gary Sheffield are two players who are already confirmed, with Lou Pinella and Ozzie Guillen signed up to represent the management end. Pinella says he will take whatever he can get, although he told ESPN that his first choice was the First Base Bag Fling. It is rumored that several teams have expressed interest in signing Carl Everett away from the Long Island Ducks of the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball, simply to have him on the bench for an Ump-Attack. When called to comment, Everett said, “[expletive] off.”
Selig came out with more news today, in a rare moment free from senility, as he discussed the plan that’s being devised to speed up game times. It seems the MLB has taken a page from the Olympic committees of 2008 by looking to add some absurdity to extra-inning games. However, the rule that was used in the Beijing Olympics [“If an Olympic baseball game it tied after 10 innings, each subsequent half-inning will start with runners at first and second base with nobody out. Teams can start at any point in their batting order,” Mlb.com] is apparently not good enough for Selig. The commissioner’s toyed with the idea of having each half-inning start with the bases juiced and nobody out, and better than using any part of the batting order, he wanted to allow a team to use whatever batter they want as many times as they want! Think Ortiz can get the job done? Well hey, even if he strikes out, let him try again! Let’s just get the damn game over with. This vision was scratched for an extra-innings plan that is overall more rational: a thumb war contest between starting short stops. Pin the thumb and win the game.
Finally, we see that no level of play has gone untouched in these recent developments. In a nation wide movement, Little League Baseball has decided that all players will be tested for steroids—before every game. Spokesman for the movement, Barry Balco, is quoted as saying, “We feel this is the best way to nab the anabolic-pumping-punks. Jose Conseco has actually volunteered to personally collect urine samples across the country in an effort to clean up baseball.”
I’ve got only an hour until the Sox are on so it’s back to the Real World for me. It will be interesting to see where the MLB goes in the future—let’s hope I’m way off base about Bizarro Baseball. I just want to see a better example set for the younger generations of wannabe ballplayers; don't you?
-sportsgal
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