or, Rupert Puts Roger Ailes in Charge of Fox Sports
"The Balls of Liberty must be Atwatered from time to time with the Dribble of the Dimwitted and the Piddle of the Privileged. It encourages their natural downward spin." - Sir Roger Hoggwash (celebrated cricketer and producer of "Fox Hunter and Friends")
Being both a Progressive and a fan of Major League Baseball, I sometimes find myself confronted with a troubling moral dilemma: whether or not to besmirch myself by watching the odd baseball game on FOX Sports. Don't get me wrong; I will watch a game on FOX, but it requires considerable self-justification. I tell myself things like, "Actually, Rupert Murdoch doesn't make a dime off you watching this. You're not in the market for a new Dodge Ram Pickup, you hate Doritos, and you haven't gone near a Coors Light in years. Relax, already. Such rationalizations, until recently, worked wonders in assuaging my guilt. But, alas, no longer. Not now that Murdoch the Mighty has put Roger Ailes in charge of FOX's sports division.
Imagine the horror of tuning in during the sixth inning of a game and hearing the wingnut blathering of FOX News commentators Sieve Doozy and Kneel Kabuki. Oh, the humanity!
Kabuki: Well so far, Sieve, I'd say we've had a pretty fair and balanced contest here this afternoon.
Doozy: That's right, Kneel. The fact that the scoreboard shows a 17-1 advantage in favor of the Tawkina Blue Streaks over the Rottenboro Red Herrings is really quite misleading. As I'm sure our FOX Sports viewers are well aware, Commissioner Limbaugh's recent ruling that "any game decided by a margin of less than 23 runs shall be considered a tie has gone a long way toward eliminating the sort of unfair advantage previously enjoyed by teams who held "numeric superiority or who employed "game plans or "strategies , or other kinds of underhanded tricks. And if you saw those three homemade-sign-waving grassroots demonstrators outside the FOX News Studio this morning in support of the commissioner, you know in your gut that real baseball fans everywhere are 100% behind this common sense ruling...
Kabuki: So after five innings here at Dan Smoot Memorial Stadium in Rottenboro, Texas, the score is tied, 17-1.
Doozy: And Kneel, here comes the Tawkina Blue Streaks' manager, "Doc O'Bama out of the visitors' dugout. Yep, he's waving down to the bullpen. Looks like he's gonna bring in his controversial middle reliever, Max Balkus.
Kabuki: That could be good news for the Red Herrings, Sieve. Balkus has a lifetime ERA of 27.2.
Doozy: Good point, Kneel, and the stats show that Balkus certainly lives up to his name. He's the National League record holder for "maximum number of balks committed in a single game , an impressive thirteen, in fact. Among active pitchers, only Harry "Wiffle Ball Weed comes close, with nine.
Kabuki: Excuse me, but do you notice anything odd about that conference the Blue Streaks are having out there on the mound, Sieve?
Doozy: What do you mean?
Kabuki: Maybe it's my imagination, but I don't see a single Red Herring uniform in that conference. It looks to me like the Blue Streaks are trying to prevent their opponents from having any input into an important decision that could drastically affect the outcome of the game. I doubt the fans are going to stand for this, Sieve.
Doozy: Neither, apparently is the plate umpire, Gland Bark. He's gone out to the mound to admonish O'Bama for exhibiting shameless personal bias against the Red Herrings. Now Bark's waving at the Herring dugout, holding up three fingers. Oh, I see. He's motioning for three Red Herring players to join the conference on the mound, which should even things up a bit.
Kabuki: That's only fair, obviously. But really, Sieve, does it go far enough? I heard from a reliable source that the Red Herrings don't have a single representative inside the Streaks dugout. Not one! Without appropriate oversight and reasonable consultation by members of the Rottenboro team, how can the fans trust any of the decisions coming out of that dugout?
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