Teddy Ballgame
04-17-2005, 02:29 PM
Whither Baseball 20 Years From Now?
- IT IS ALWAYS CHANCEY to predict the future. As the old haberdasher and POTUS Harry Truman said, "the hindsight of the dullest schoolboy is superior to the foresight of the wisest statesman". And as former Toronto mayor Allan Lamport once observed, "it is hard to make predictions - especially about the future".
- But any fool can look back on December 31st at the year that was and almost any fool can make the safe predictions about what is likely to happen in the coming year. Its those long term predictions that are so tricky. But I don't know the meaning of the word "impossible", I don't know the meaning of the word "quit", (actually, now that I think of it, I don't know the meaning of thousands of words) so I always like to take a moment on December 31st to look ahead and make my predictions not for the coming year because that is too easy but for the year coming twenty years from now.
- And the following is one of the predictions I made on December 31st, 2004 for the year 2024, twenty years from now.
"60 year old Barry Bonds sets a new single season HR record with 239 and is voted the National League's Most Valuable Player for 2024. Bonds, you will remember, is the baseball star who gained over 35 pounds of muscle and blossomed into a super star after the age of 35, increasing his annual HRs and batting average and ratio of walks to at bats by as much as 40% between ages 35 and 40 compared with his numbers in what would normally have been his prime career years. He continued playing baseball and, at age 55, he again added 35-40 more pounds of muscle to his now stretch Hummer-like frame and has had his best years ever between the ages of 55 and 60.
Cynics say this new muscle mass and his unprecedented productivity in his golden years is the result of his new generation of steroids plus his recent lazer vision transplants giving him artifically adjusted 20/01 vision, his new $250,000 Adidis computerized baseball shoes made by 60 cents a day slave labourers in Indonesia that enable him with this jet assisted take off speed to go from home to first in 2 seconds flat and his specially designed titanium bat that is ten times as strong as the traditional wooden bat at 1/10th the weight.
But Barry insists that it is strictly the result of superhuman natural ability, incredibly hard work and a "special ointment" he takes every day "to treat his arthritis".
Baseball Commissioner Darryl Strawberry has promised to look into the steroids allegations as soon as next season or the one after that so as "to ensure that the integrity of the game is preserved".
Baseball purists, steamed about Bonds' alleged steroids use and other unnatural advantages, are plotting to overcome his tainted records by thawing out Ted Williams who is currently frozen solid in a cryogenics vault in Florida and getting Teddy Ballgame back in the game.
- IT IS ALWAYS CHANCEY to predict the future. As the old haberdasher and POTUS Harry Truman said, "the hindsight of the dullest schoolboy is superior to the foresight of the wisest statesman". And as former Toronto mayor Allan Lamport once observed, "it is hard to make predictions - especially about the future".
- But any fool can look back on December 31st at the year that was and almost any fool can make the safe predictions about what is likely to happen in the coming year. Its those long term predictions that are so tricky. But I don't know the meaning of the word "impossible", I don't know the meaning of the word "quit", (actually, now that I think of it, I don't know the meaning of thousands of words) so I always like to take a moment on December 31st to look ahead and make my predictions not for the coming year because that is too easy but for the year coming twenty years from now.
- And the following is one of the predictions I made on December 31st, 2004 for the year 2024, twenty years from now.
"60 year old Barry Bonds sets a new single season HR record with 239 and is voted the National League's Most Valuable Player for 2024. Bonds, you will remember, is the baseball star who gained over 35 pounds of muscle and blossomed into a super star after the age of 35, increasing his annual HRs and batting average and ratio of walks to at bats by as much as 40% between ages 35 and 40 compared with his numbers in what would normally have been his prime career years. He continued playing baseball and, at age 55, he again added 35-40 more pounds of muscle to his now stretch Hummer-like frame and has had his best years ever between the ages of 55 and 60.
Cynics say this new muscle mass and his unprecedented productivity in his golden years is the result of his new generation of steroids plus his recent lazer vision transplants giving him artifically adjusted 20/01 vision, his new $250,000 Adidis computerized baseball shoes made by 60 cents a day slave labourers in Indonesia that enable him with this jet assisted take off speed to go from home to first in 2 seconds flat and his specially designed titanium bat that is ten times as strong as the traditional wooden bat at 1/10th the weight.
But Barry insists that it is strictly the result of superhuman natural ability, incredibly hard work and a "special ointment" he takes every day "to treat his arthritis".
Baseball Commissioner Darryl Strawberry has promised to look into the steroids allegations as soon as next season or the one after that so as "to ensure that the integrity of the game is preserved".
Baseball purists, steamed about Bonds' alleged steroids use and other unnatural advantages, are plotting to overcome his tainted records by thawing out Ted Williams who is currently frozen solid in a cryogenics vault in Florida and getting Teddy Ballgame back in the game.