What if the Government Took Over Baseball (Satire)

By Mike Fak

[July 20, 2011]  Well baseball season is upon us and that always warms my heart. More importantly, baseball season means the weather will also start warming my feet which have been frozen for the past 3 months. Barry Bonds court case is in the sports news of course. The reason Bonds is in court is because he lied to a federal grand jury. It seems with all the mess in Washington these days, the feds still have time to try and clean up baseball rather than use the broom on their own bureaucratic dirt.

Reading about the trial, I asked myself: "What would happen to baseball if the government took the sport over entirely?” Here are some of the things I believe would happen.

There will be no records kept of anyone stealing a base. One of the umpires will make a statement to the sportswriters that to their knowledge no such theft occurred and if one did neither they nor anyone in their political party had any knowledge or involvement in the larceny.

Baseballs will be let out to the lowest bidder. That means the current $9.00 per ball price will go up to approximately $1253.00 each, just slightly less than a government hammer or toilet seat.

It will still be three strikes and you're out unless the batter and umpire are from the same political party and then a batter might be allowed several more mistakes at the plate without any repercussions or sanctions by an umpire.

Instant replay will not be allowed. In fact at the end of each game all audio and video records of the game will be destroyed with both parties issuing statements that to the best of their recollections the game never happened.

Batting averages will be kept by the department of defense which will cause them to skyrocket. When questioned how someone with 3 hits in 75 at bats can have a 400 batting average, the defense department will convene a multi-million dollar panel to look into the matter but never report their findings..

Umpires will be allowed to carry shopping bags to prevent money, and checks from flying around the ballpark. The umpires will instruct reporters that their receiving money just before they made a call had no bearing on how they ruled.

All equipment in the game from mitts to bats to cup protection will cost a thousand fold more than it does at any sporting goods store and will be of shoddy material, construction and workmanship. The manufactures of this equipment will be continually sanctioned and fined but those fines will never be collected as they continue to make more shoddy equipment.

To cut costs, umpire calls at second base and third base will be outsourced to India via a multi million dollar satellite system that frequently will break down.

An umpire's decision will immediately have commentary by several pundits who will argue over the umpire's politics with no regard or interest in determining the accuracy of the call.

There will be no foul poles so that a baseball hit down the line will be subject to interpretation if it is left or right in its travel.

The baseball rule book will be increased from 417 pages to a volume requiring the entire 17th floor of the Library of Congress. This will have to be built at taxpayer expense since there currently isn't a 17th floor.

All food vending services will be let out to Halliburton causing a hot dog and beer to cost $189.95

Yeh, let's get the government involved in baseball.
 

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