Will Baseball Run Out of Asterisks?
A new technology is making its halting debut this Spring Training season. It gives batters another new advantage that will likely result in artificially higher batting averages as well as prolonging careers. This is, it should be noted, the same effect (though perhaps to a lesser degree) as the use of steroids, a chemical way of increasing batting averages and prolonging careers that has resulted in one of the biggest brouhahas in the history of the game.
I speak, of course, of NBG, which stands for the New Batting Glove. This apparel enhancement boasts the presence of a brand-new material called AIC (Advanced Impact Composite). This substance is said to reduce the pain impact on the hands of making contact -- either with the bat or the hand -- with a pitched ball by about 60%. SIXTY FREAKING PERCENT! Steroids, at their best, perhaps improved a hitter's bat speed and muscle mass something like 15-20%. And people are being banned for life for using it.
Of course, this glove has already been approved by Major League Baseball. Sure. Wonder if Non-Commissioner Selig is getting a commission on sales.
I'm calling for a temporary ban on the new glove while a scientific commission headed by MSNBC's Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann and made up of all admitted or convicted steroid users and The Science Guy can study the actual effect of this new gimmickry on our beloved and pristine national pastime which has never before allowed the admission of a new technology like this to screw up the pitcher-hitter relationship. Oh, except for all the new bat manufacturing tricks that have occurred since the 1930s. Oh, yeah, and there was that stupid idea of raising the pitcher's mound. Who came up with that one? And the well-known but always-denied "juiced ball." But of course those were all just "minor adjustments" right? Not like steroids that were fine, thank you, fine until someone had to open their big mouth and point out that even though they weren't banned from baseball they were illegal substances in some jurisdictions.
Crank up the asterisk machine, boys! We're gonna have a ton of new hitting records to flag when the dust settles from this one.
(Thanks to my buddy Tony Seton for the pointage on this one.)
