Angry Asterisks

A client of mine sent me this story about Mike Murphy, the guy who managed to snag Bonds' historical #756 Tuesday night at San Francisco's AT&T Park and the possible tax penalties Murphy will face if he keeps the ball. Worth a look.

In an effort to keep my readers in the loop, I rigged up a quick time machine and travelled a hundred years into the future to see what would become of our national pastime as a result of Bonds' achievement. Some interesting stuff, let me tell you:

August 14th, 2007: After some intense grabbing and shoving, college student Mike Murphy emerges from the human pig pile at AT&T Park with Barry Bonds' 756th home-run ball. Bonds says he is happy the Murphy had caught the ball, claiming to feel "A certain connection with fans who, like me, have alliterative names." Swallowing hard, Murphy decides to hold onto the ball, reputedly valued at over a half-million dollars, and pays upwards of $200,000.00 in taxes on the ball. The communications major is forced to work overtime in the A/V lab.

June 14th, 2009: MLB's laissez-faire attitude towards drugs in the sport continues, and a team of resentful chemists at Tulane University, sensing an opportunity to make a bid at vicarious athletic glory, refine a host of new performance-enhancing drugs.

April 3, 2010: A suspiciously muscular college student named Allworth Pennwright from New Orleans shatters the college record for home runs in a college career. Negotiations to draft the kid into the big-leagues start at $150 million. Of Pennwright's WWF-proportions, ubiquitous track marks, and frequent dust-ups with old ladies in parking lots whose shopping carts graze his bumper, baseball officials say "That's just Allworth being Allworth."

May 6th, 2018: Six Major Leaguers sail past the 800 homer mark before their 33rd birthdays.

April 18th, 2020: The official definition of a "Home Run" is amended to mean a ball hit not just off the field of play but "out of the ball park." Spectators are theretofore dubbed "Assistant Outfielders."

September 16th, 2021: Four shockingly well-built seventh-graders from Reno reach 800 home runs each over a short three Little League seasons.

June 12th, 2035: Baseball scores routinely begin to resemble basketball scores. Fans leave Fenway Park in droves during a Red Sox-Orioles face-off whose final score is a mere 45-37, played in dense New England fog. "Just not a lot happening in that game, man--what is this, soccer?" said a disappointed fan, polishing off the last bites of his Fenway Frank.

June 28th, 2036: Failing to hit a home run when at bat now defined as an "error." Player regularly fined for failing to hit 100 homers a season.

April 3rd, 2037: Pete Rose expresses incredulity that he's still not in the Hall of Fame.

May 4th, 2040: An angry group of asterisks (*) storm Cooperstown, New York, claiming overwork in annals of baseball history. Scabbing umlauts fill in, claiming, "We have commas to feed, and this is our chance."

August 4th, 2042: A single individual baseball survives a game without having been blasted out of the stadium. An enterprising bat boy swipes the offending ball, which fetches $2.1 million on eBay. Market value of home run balls declines to less than the price of a new ball at SportMart.

June 18th, 2046: Fans lament the passing of the "good old days," when records like Bonds' "really meant something."

June 20th, 2046: Herbert Finkel Von Hofenstein makes a mint selling "Home Run Proof Armor" for spectators and pedestrians in the vicinity of ballparks.

Opening Day, 2075: Fans who were bored with the game in the 80's and returned for the home-run hysteria in the 90's and beyond now bored again with the almost incessant parade of home runs. Baseball stadiums now eerily empty during regular season games, filled only by jackhammer-like sound of near-constant home run hits.

September 20th, 2085: Steroids banned officially from Major League Baseball.

August 6th, 2107: Pete Rose still not in Hall of Fame.