Perhaps nothing embodies the spirit of the American family more so than an afternoon spent at the ballpark. As a testament to baseball’s ability to bring even the most dysfunctional of families together, I still have vivid memories of waking up one Christmas morning to find two tickets to the Red Sox 1991 home opener waiting for me under the tree. That was most assuredly a banner year in the O’Connor household, as a traditional Christmas usually consisted of my mom telling me I should be grateful that I made it another year without being put to work at the sulfur refinery across the street.

My father and I went to the game, and he even let me suck the salt off of the discarded peanut shells that had been haphazardly strewn about the floor of the ballpark! On the car ride home it was decided that I should sign up for little league in the spring, because my old man was afraid that reading comics and playing video games all day would turn me into a “fucking fairy”. Now I write for an entertainment website and my dad’s dead. Looks like I got the last laugh, eh pop?

Ever since that day I’ve had somewhat of an insatiable love for America’s pastime. So great is my affliction for the sport, that when B told me to write an update or else he’d stab me in the eye with a fire poker, I knew what had to be done. Using a lawn chair, an umbrella, the circuitry from my Tiger Electronics “Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers” handheld game, and the “Cuddly Cats” 1999 calendar (for the purpose of chronological record-keeping), I set out to fashion a rudimentary time machine so that I could travel two-hundred years into The Future! to check up on my favorite sport. I must’ve connected the right wires and pulled the right levers or something, because here I am, live from the year 2204!

Now, I know some of you aren’t exactly familiar with our American baseball. I understand that many of you aren’t even fans of sports in general. I also realize that a select few of you aren’t too sure as to what a “sports” even is. Don’t worry though, as I’ve gone to great lengths to ensure this article’s mainstream appeal and ultimate success. For instance, there will be plenty of sentences written in bold text. There will also be several humorous pictures to look at; some of which have absolutely nothing to do with baseball at all!

Now hold on just a second. You mean to tell me that you’ve managed to travel almost two-hundred years into The Future! and all you plan on talking about is fucking baseball? Just you wait until you get the poorly worded e-mail I’ll be sending you which will not only question your heterosexual ambiguity, but will also chronicle the many acts of sexual deviance your mother engages in with me on a nightly basis!

See, that’s a real moral dilemma. On the one hand, if I do give away information about The Future! before it comes to pass I’ll initiate some absurdly complex breakdown in the space-time continuum or something and Biff will take the sports almanac back to 1955, thus rendering the present nothing more than a manifestation of his own twisted imagination. On the other hand, Lea Thompson looked hot with huge knockers, so what the hell? Without further adieu I present a Progressiveboink.com exclusive;

• 2064: Man re-invents the wheel after the original blueprints were lost in a filing mishap
  
  
• 2096: After looking back upon the past sixty years and coming to the conclusion that mankind hadn’t progressed to the point that all of the late fifties “scientifically fictitious” writers projected we’d be at, all men, women and children were issued a standard dress-code consisting of a tinfoil jumpsuit with a rocket ship patch over the breast pocket and a glass fishbowl to wear as a space helmet. Also, the sleek stylish robots which were being manufactured at the time were outfitted with large restricting cardboard boxes, spray painted silver, and adorned with bulky PVC tubing where their once functional and mobile arm units used to be.
  
  
• 2097: Due to a glaring oversight during the design process, billions of faulty uniforms had to be recalled. Using the tinfoil as a reflective surface and magnifying though the glass fishbowl, millions of people were reduced to nothing more than quivering piles of mucus and hair follicles by the sun’s potent UV rays. Those lucky enough to survive were forced to seek refuge in various boarded up cathedrals and underground sewer systems, where to this day they lie in wait, preparing for the moment when they’ll be able to enact their revenge upon the “normals”.
  
  
• 2162: Microsoft releases “Fable” for their XBOX home gaming console.
  

There! Let’s see you assholes find fault with my work now!

*checks e-mail*

Aside from being the slowest sport to watch in a live setting, baseball has always been the slowest sport when it comes to evolution. Why, even back in the primitive days of 2004 you could still catch any number of Aryan supremacists being towed onto the field via sled helmed by a team of ragged migrant field-workers. Fortunately, in an attempt to keep with the times, the major market franchise owners saw fit to revamp some of baseball’s rules and even add a few new ones of their own. Below are a few of the more important changes to the rulebook and their impact on how the game will forever be played.

1. The Manufactured Synthetic Automaton League

“We reckon we’s good ‘nuff to carry de o’ganic massuh’s ‘longings, reckken we’s good ‘nuff to play de o’ganic massuh’s hittin’ ball too.”
-PitcherBot 6000 of the Servitron 5 Racially Insensitive Stereotypical Mascots

And thus, the robot-only MSAL was born. Exclusive to only those made entirely of metal and silicon and Roger Clemens (who’s being kept alive by injecting an intravenous fluid comprised mostly of crushed up Flintstone’s chewable vitamins and Tang powder directly into his black remorseless soul), the MSAL was founded to provide those artificial life forms programmed to excel athletic based activities a place to shine.

I’m astonished that it took MLB officials as long as it did to implement this monumental change to the sport. I personally know more than a few Brewers fans that are frothing at the mouth at the prospect of an epic Ben Ford/Ben Hendrickson pitcher’s duel. Fortunately, for fans in the future, seeing their team’s finest pitching prospects go head-to-head is no longer a fool’s dream. And with the advent of teleportation, Roger Clemens can pitch every inning of every game, since he’s managed to contractually align himself with EVERY TEAM IN THE LEAGUE.

3. Witchcraft and the Conjuring of Spirits

There was a brief period of time during the mid-2080’s when major league ball clubs were allowed to employ the services of witch-doctors and Cajun spirit conjurers in order to summon the assistance players long since deceased. It was actually a pretty good idea since it gave a new generation the chance to catch the finest players from baseball’s golden generation in action. The rule was abolished however, when a group of particularly unruly Red Sox fans stuffed the recently resurrected animated corpse of the Babe into a burlap sack, took turns violently accosting him with a bar of soap and a pitching wedge, then threw his writhing body into a grain thresher.

4. Instant Replay

Many other sports have employed the use of instant replay in some capacity for centuries. Even Greco-Roman wrestling had a guy painstakingly chiseling the action onto comically large stone tablets so there’d be a real-time account of the action incase the referee happened to get blindsided by a lead goblet or an olive branch to the eye or something.

Well, that about wraps up my coverage of baseball’s storied and fabled future! I hope you all get a chance to visit The Future! someday because it really is quite exhilarating. Oh, and if any of you are wondering how I managed to update a website hosted in the year 2004 while living it up in The Future!, the answer is actually very simple. You se-

Would Be Scribe signed off at 6:23:45 AM

AIM: Would Be Scribe
klamkilla@nbrid.net

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