“Oh, did you see that? That foul ball took the head right off that cardboard dummy standing in for a real fan. Brutal!”
…And their mouths hung open for a minute or two. Then all the Muds down in Mudville, the tall and the small, all cried ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?
Is this like some alter-universe baseball version of Brazil?
Cardboard-fucking-cutouts? As fans? I… I have no words for this.
Geezus, go play ball in an Iowan corn field. Find some goddamned high school that’s got no high schoolers in it due to, you know, pan-fucking-demic, and play at their field.
To stick cut-outs of people into seats—not just behind the plate, no, behind the outfielders too—is beyond surreal. It’s sick. This is a sign of sickness.
(And I don’t care HOW much those idiots—whose faces coat those cut-outs—paid to get their dopey faces onto those half-assed dime store mannequins. Nothing could be worth the SHAME of playing before a pantheon of paper people. Nothing.)
Anonymole - apocryphal agitators 
V intense, v enjoyable 🙂
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That’s pretty funny. Thank you for making me chuckle.
Playing in front of an audience gives you some sort of a rush. You know you give 100% during your training sessions but 110% when in front of a crowd. I know I used to. The cheers can be a massive ego boost.
But yea, paper cut-outs? Pretty pathetic.
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If I was a player, I’d be throwing balls at the cutouts every chance I got, like a carnival game to see how many I could knock down. Could be fun:-)
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Hang on – things can only get crazier I’m afraid.
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Cardboard cut outs as an audience is what step away from asking the ultimate question: “What the fuck is the point?” LOL!
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I enjoy playing the game. Community softball was a gas. But only PLAYING it. Watching it? Fuck that.
I happened to flip the idiotbox channel and sat stunned by that image.
If folks want to watch other people have a good time playing a game, OK, but you don’t have to do it in a stadium. Play on an old dirt field in Havana with a dozen drones zooming about capturing the action.
About damn time the concept of entertainment was challenged. And, I’m OK with this reevaluation being caused by a disease. Break the pattern. Break all the damn patterns.
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But you haven’t lived until you’ve dug your teeth into a cardboard ballpark corn dog and washed ‘er down with a Bud Light cup full of confetti.
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Shame? The shame is what they pay those guys. The payroll for players from the Dominican Republic alone is greater than their home country’s GNP. If we threw the MLB or NFL payroll at teachers and education instead of thugs playing a kids game they’d play for a living wage since they can’t do anything else just think what might be accomplished.
They can’t play on a high school. The outfielders would be standing in the parking lot.
And the paper people? Welcome to pick your religion’s new way to canvas for cash. See yourself in the third row when they stream the service.
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College fields? Use aluminum bats? Use wiffleballs?
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As athletes, I acknowledge their skill. And you’re right, nobody can possibly qualify for such compensation.
A return to smalltown teams playing other locals, all youtubed for your enjoyment?
Put widely spread fans out past the homerun fence–with gloves–to catch fliers? You’re OUT – caught by a fan!
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I don’t doubt their skill level, body as machine and all that, but it’s obscene what they pay those people. Yes. Locals, regionals. There’s a good story about back in the 1920’s the world champ New York giants showed up in western Oklahoma and got beat by some locals. I am reminded of the Tom Hanks girl baseball team, a beat up bus and all that. Play for the sport of it. For every kid who made it to the draft there’s a thousand that went to the wrong school to get noticed. Hell, Tony Romo was the most overpaid, over rated no winning walk-on in history while hundreds of more talented college grads got insurance licenses and went to work fo4 their father in law.
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I’ve despised celebrity sports personalities, and the money that goes with it my whole life. In fact, I detest the general celebration of team sports — as a spectator activity.
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Come on, it’s great for the ego to have a crowd. I bet they had recordings of cheers, too. All life is going virtual, People? Useless.
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Oh, they have the crowd samples. Like watching an old sitcom with the canned laugh track. Baseball meets “I Love Lucy”.
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