Baseball 2.0

I’m no mathologist, but by my count we’ve been in the 21st Century for at least a couple years now. And unless you’ve been living under a bridge like I have for the past 13 months, you’ll know that everything about the 21st Century is new and clean and shiny and new and not old. Everything’s getting updated, man. TVs are now wide and skinny, cars can now drive themselves, our phones now send emails and dirty pictures, and newspapers have been replaced by bright tablet screens and a decreasing interest in world events. Everything’s changing, and baseball needs to change, too.

Sure there are night games now and team payrolls rival GDPs of some smaller nations, but if we don’t do something soon, baseball is going to die. Football is kicking our butts, you guys. And upstart sports like zero-gravity jai alai and Ultimate Thumb Wrestling are looking to topple our nation’s pastime in the ratings. Heck, even regular TV is poaching our young viewers. People used to watch baseball on TV because there were only three channels. Now, you can watch anything whenever you want. Did you know there’s a whole show with just dogs sniffing each other? It’s on PBS and I TiVO it every night because it’s great. We need to do something to save baseball, and we need to do it now.

I’m not saying drastic changes have to happen all at once. We need to keep pitchers and batters and most likely the ball and probably the bases. But that doesn’t mean we can’t spruce some things up a little. If we want kids to tune in, we need to update some of the terminology to make baseball sound new and edgy. These are just a few suggestions, but hopefully it gets the conversation going.

Grand Slam

This is an easy one to start with. Nobody says “grand” anymore. When’s the last time you heard someone say “this sandwich is grand” or “work was grand today” or “my mom says I can borrow the car, isn’t that grand?” Never. We say things are sweet or awesome or baller. We need to think of something new. How does “fresh slam” sound? Maybe “dope slam?” I know! How about “totes rad slam?” Bryce Harper went three for four with a double and a totes rad slam. That sounds pretty grand, if you ask me. I’m not married to it, but let’s keep an open mind.

The Shot Heard Round the World

If I know kids — which, no thanks to that court order, I still think I do — I know that they love history. If we want them to get into baseball, we have to shower them with some totes rad history! Bobby Thomson’s hit was awesome, but we need to update the name. “The Shot Heard ‘Round the World” sounds like something my grandpa would say to another grandpa at a walkers and catheters convention. BORING. Plus, that phrase is also used to talk about a war and numbers show that people think war is a total bummer now. It’s gotta go.

How about we change it to “Bobby Thomson Came to Bat with the Pennant on the Line, You Won’t Believe What Happened Next?” It’s wordy, I know. But think. Any time someone links to it on Wikipedia or whatever, the link will say Bobby Thomson Came to Bat with the Pennant on the Line, You Won’t Believe What Happened Next. I think the new title will make kids want to learn more about Bobby Thomson Came to Bat with the Pennant on the Line, You Won’t Believe What Happened Next. We’ll have to update some books, sure. But when the kids grow up, they can tell their kids about Bobby Thomson Came to Bat with the Pennant on the Line, You Won’t Believe What Happened Next. And they can tell their kids about Bobby Thomson Came to Bat with the Pennant on the Line, You Won’t Believe What Happened Next. I can feel the summer breezes and smell the pipe smoke now.

Tinker to Evers to Chance

Another great piece of history. Did I mention that kids freaking love history?! But not enough kids know about this poem even though it includes two things kids love; sports and rhyming. Honestly, I think it’s the names. I like Tinker. Tinker sounds like a guy you know who’ll hook you up with a joint every now and then. But Evers and Chance gotta go. How does Tinker to T-Dawg to Chaz sound? Those dudes sound chill as hell.

Merkle’s Boner

This one is so obvious, I shouldn’t even have to mention it. You say boner in front of young people and they get all giggly. They’ll giggle and giggle until they’re hysterical, and the next thing you know they’re betting on bum fights to win money to buy more PCP. Merkle’s Boner might be the biggest threat to our country right now. At least, after chemtrails.

Merkle’s Epic Fail. Nailed it. The thing basically writes itself. Now, instead of thinking about swimsuit areas, kids will be thinking of how one mistake in life can lead to a mocked and barren existence. It’s the way Judge Landis would have wanted it.

Casey at the Bat

This thing is so boring, I strained my eyes from rolling them so hard. The story is OK, I guess, even though heroes are supposed to win in the end. But the wording needs to go. I read the poem out loud, and my cat turned into a phonograph. That’s how dated this thing is. We need to polish this thing, like right now. We need one of the present day’s most thoughtful writers and linguists to rework this baby. We need a genius. We need Kanye.

All I’m saying is that if Kanye West rewrote Casey at the Bat, a hundred million kids would download it on iTunes. Well, a million kids would and the rest would pirate it, but we’d still be getting it out there. It’s gonna be spendy. Maybe we can just give him the A’s or something. But we need Kanye for this. We need a seminal piece of baseball writing that doesn’t sound like it was written by a vampire. This poem and the game are married. Kanye is the marital aid. It’s gonna be weird at first, but they’ll get used to it, and it’s good for the relationship.

OK, so that’s a start, right? We have a good plan of attack here. All we need to do is rewrite some history books and some famous works of poetry, and convince an ego-maniacal billionaire to run a baseball team. A few years from now, when baseball is once again America’s pastime, all this work will have been worth it.

Anyway, you said you are looking for a sedan, right? Let’s walk this way. We got a great new crop of sedans just yesterday. Alloy wheels, satellite radio, the works.