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Friday, July 12, 2002

Bud Selig, the man who brought the two-minute warning to baseball, would likely prefer that the season end this weekend rather than endure all the bad publicity, unseemly whining and bizarre developments that are all but promised by the next few months.

We can report definitively this morning that Bud's fears will be realized, and in all their poisonous karma. Having consulted with the Orco Life Extension Institute for Telepathy, Clairvoyance, and Steam Cleaning of Scottsdale, Ariz., an astoundingly crystalline picture of baseball's immediate future has emerged.

And it goes somethin' like this:

July 15 -- The Tampa Bay Devil Rays, the only team to match the Pirates loss for 100th loss last year, fail to meet their payroll. Eleventh-hour negotiations between the club, Bay area banks and the St. Petersburg's mayor's office end with this comment from the mayor: "Wait, the players for the Devils Rays get paid?" Reporters swarm Tropicana Field but are met by bolted entrances and one small hand-printed sign that reads "Back in 5 minutes."

July 20 -- Giants slugger Barry Bonds, clarifying his stance on steroid use under pressure from fried chicken titan KFC, says again that it is not drug testing that he objects to, it's random drug testing, which happens to be the only viable drug deterrent ever deployed. Bonds evidently wants to be alerted to any drug test in enough time to vacate a steroids cycle or at least retain the right to use the game's first "pinch-urinator." Critics note that Barry's understanding of this and every other issue facing the game is best portrayed by the three words he has in George Costanza's KFC commercial: "Not a clue."

July 25 -- Commissioner Selig, noting that the body of Hall of Famer Ted Williams is still hanging upside down with several severed heads in a cryonic chamber inside the "life extension" palace of the Jerry "Dr. Evil" Lemler, introduces a plan to move the frozen corpse of Teddy Ballgame every year to the city that wins the World Series. Should there be one. Ever.

July 28 -- Elias, the statistical authority, reports that for the first time in baseball history, the temperature of a cryonically preserved former player and the aggregate temperature of one team's offense are identical. Both Ted Williams and Pirates batters are at minus 320 degrees. The pejorative term "colder than Ted Williams" enters the game's lexicon forevermore.

July 30 -- The Major League Players Association (average member's wage $46,000/week) sets a strike date of Sept. 8. Selig says he was "shocked and saddened" by a phone call from union hypnotist Don Fehr apprising him of the deadline. Selig says he was virtually speechless during the call but did remember saying to Fehr, "You realize, of course, that Sept. 8 is Oliver Onion Bean Bag Day at PNC Park."

July 31 -- Selig announces his intention to have his head cryonically frozen Sept. 7.

Aug. 12 -- During a Pirates-Cardinals broadcast, Lanny Frattare notes that the cost in bonus money to the Cardinals of having pitcher Matt Morris selected to the All-Star Game and the cost to Bud Selig to have his head cryonically frozen were the same: $50,000.

Aug. 18 -- The Texas Rangers go out of business. Club executives offer little explanation, but General Manager John Hart tells The Best Damned Sports Show, Period's Tom Arnold, "Maybe it had something to do with the fact that we're paying the shortstop $300,000 more than the U.S. government offered for information leading to the capture of Osama bin Laden, $25 million. Ya think?"

Aug. 24 -- At a White House news conference, President Bush reacts testily to questions about whether he plans to involve himself in the looming baseball strike or the looming legal battle over the still-frozen remains of Ted Williams. "Are you people nuts!" the president thunders. "I'm running a global war against maniacal murdering terrorists, I'm trying to keep the economy from steering off a cliff, I'm trying to keep Dick Cheney from being indicted, and I got a columnist in the New York Times suggesting that by solving the baseball labor situation I would 'ensure a domestic legacy no president has been able to achieve.'

"Oh yeah, that's what I want my legacy to be. The man who made the world safe for the Kansas City Royals."

Sept. 5 -- John Henry Williams, son of the late Red Sox slugger, announces plans to sell his father's frozen "mojo" to the highest bidder.

Sept. 6 -- Jerry "Dr. Evil" Lemler resigns his post as president of the Alco Life Extension Foundation to become Commissioner of Baseball. "How hard can it be?" Dr. Evil tells CNN. "You freeze the whole thing 50, 100 years, sever some heads, by which time maybe somebody'll think of somethin'."

Sept. 8 -- Strike begins. Kevin McClatchy takes home 15,000 Oliver Onion bean bags.