We here at Major League Baseball (M.L.B.) have put a great deal of thought and preparation into this year’s abbreviated, sixty-game season. With player health and safety paramount, here are the rule changes that will be implemented on a rolling basis as the season progresses:
Rule Changes Effective Opening Day, July 24th
To shorten playing time and thereby limit player risk and exposure, every extra inning will start with a runner already at second base.
To further limit player exposure, fans will not be allowed to attend games. Instead, cardboard cutouts of season-ticket holders will be placed in the seats behind home plate.
Off the field, players are banned from visiting bars, honky-tonks, and strip clubs, unless they’re really restless and just need to get out of the hotel for a while.
Rule Changes Effective Friday, July 31st
Games involving players who have tested positive for COVID-19 have been postponed and will be rescheduled as part of a shortened, seven-inning doubleheader.
Cardboard cutouts of season-ticket holders can now leave during the sixth inning to beat the traffic.
Players should think twice before sending a trainer’s assistant to the lobby to distract security while they sprint down the hotel’s rear stairway in order to visit bars, honky-tonks, and strip clubs, but, if they must, should consider confining themselves to those venues’ less-crowded V.I.P. lounges.
Rule Changes Effective Wednesday, August 5th
To further shorten game length, every strike will equal an out.
Cardboard cutouts of season-ticket holders can now leave during the sixth inning based on a “gut feeling” that their team is about to blow a three-run lead.
Players, it’s one thing to sneak out to bars, honky-tonks, and strip clubs, but commandeering the team bus for said visits, and then inviting people you meet at bars, honky-tonks, and strip clubs to jump on the bus for a late-night “tour of the city” is not cool and is to be discouraged.
Rule Changes Effective Friday, August 7th
To further shorten playing time, every game will start at the top of the ninth inning with the home team leading, 8–0.
Due to the growing “situation,” players will be replaced in games by cardboard cutouts, provided that the players are also season-ticket holders.
Players who flee their hotels claiming that they are “running for their lives,” and who can’t be easily located and retrieved because they aren’t hiding in the first place we’d look—namely, bars, honky-tonks, and strip clubs—will be billed for repatriation services by Major League Baseball.
And while we’re at it, players, why can’t you be more like the cardboard cutouts of season-ticket holders? Disease-free, always smiling and well-behaved, these M.L.B.-trademarked Cardboard Buddies are the 2020 season’s true heroes.
Rule Changes Effective Friday, August 7th, 2 P.M.
In the pursuit of even shorter game time, the home team will be declared the winner at the conclusion of batting practice.
Because who cares at this point if, when the ball is hit to left field, base runners run clockwise, and when the ball is hit to the right of second base, they run counterclockwise?
M.L.B. team owners will call N.B.A. team owners seeking advice on whether it’s too late to start playing “in the bubble.”
Rule Changes Effective Friday, August 7th, 2:53 P.M.
Wow, what a season! Congratulations to our eight World Series Champions who all shared league-leading 9–7 records!
Rule Changes Effective Saturday, August 8th
M.L.B. will abandon baseball, and pivot to marketing Cardboard Buddies™ for bar mitzvahs, weddings, and funerals.
After a Presidential appointment, the M.L.B. commissioner will report to his new job, reopening our nation’s schools.
