ESPN Requests MLB Rules Change

Alarmed by the late April collapse of the New York Yankees, ESPN has petitioned MLB to make rules changes for the remainder of the season to keep the flagship of Major League Baseball afloat.

“They’re in last place in the AL East and battling for their lives against the likes of Oakland and Toronto,” said an ESPN executive. “We didn’t invest a lot of time, energy, and talent into pumping up Yankees-Red Sox rivalries and hyping a possible Subway Series for the postseason just to see it fall apart because the Yankees suck.”

“The combination of old pitching, poor chemistry, and no clutch performance really caught us off guard,” said one baseball analyst. “It typically works well, so I don’t know what went wrong this year.”

The ESPN rules changes would require teams to supply the Yankees with two pitchers at the beginning of every series, one of the team’s choice and one of the Yankees’ choice. These pitchers would be “honorary Yankees” and play for New York for the duration of the series. The Yankees would pay the salary of the honorary members during the series to avoid any conflicts of interest, at typical Yankee escalation of 1.5 times real value.

In addition to this the DH rule will be suspended for all AL teams playing the Yankees, except Oakland, where it doesn’t seem to matter who hits. The Yankees will continue to use the DH and have been in talks with the Giants about acquiring Barry Bonds, who fits the Yankees prototype of overpaid, surly, and aging slugger.

A final change is that, if the bases are loaded and the Yankees are behind by four runs or less, Alex Rodriguez will be pitched to by a pitching machine and not an actual player. When Alex Rodriguez inevitably makes the final out in this situation, he will be allowed a “do over” where his part will be played by Derek Jeter. “We’re almost out of April, so Rodriguez should cool any day now,” said one Yankees insider.

Asked about the Mets, ESPN was hopeful that such drastic changes would not be necessary in the NL. “We’ve sent a polite but firm letter to Atlanta reminding them that everyone in the world prefers the Mets, so they need to be sure to let up and allow the Mets to surge into first place, which is rightfully theirs.”