Baseball Simulator: 2018

We’re gonna say something ridiculous. Bear with us…

Hoch might be right.

Imagine, if you will, 10 years from now. With the ridiculousness of the steroid controversies, teams that don’t belong in the league (We’re lookin’ at you, Tampa), and general boredom that tends to follow Major League Baseball around, people have stopped caring. Owners, now desperate to find new means of revenue turn to the unthinkable. It’s 2018. Ticket prices have maxed out, all the stadiums are named after hotel chains, and 7-11 owns the rights to 23 teams’ start times. So what’s the next logical step?

After the jump, we show you the future of advertising in baseball.

At first it starts small. Once upon a time, Mother’s Day produced pink bats. Major League Baseball decides to take that a step further and alter its bats again. This time to make a buck. Besides, what harm could an advertisement on a bat do to baseball in the grand scheme of things?

Exhibit A:

Sure, it’s a little much, but players get used to it. They don’t think much of it after a while. Swinging a giant Sharpie? Perfectly normal. But then MLB takes it a step further. Surely, if the players don’t mind the bats changing, they won’t mind a little change in the ball.

Exhibit B:

M&M’s sponsorship brings in hundreds of millions of dollars, but there are some snags in the beginning. The ball is hard on the eyes of the fielders. Batters are having trouble picking up the pitch as it blends with the grass. David Ortiz attempts to eat a foul ball. Eventually, though, the players adjust and it becomes just another part of the game. A game that’s slowly being consumed by corporate America.

Now that stadium names, bats and balls are tainted, owners start selling team names. The Detroit Tony the Tigers. The Chicago Hanes Sox. And worst of all…

Exhibit C:

And it doesn’t stop there. Now that teams are named after products and corporations, the movie industry attempts to cash in. With the latest installment of the Superman movie coming out around the same time as Opening Day, the Red Sox are the first team to umm… well… see for yourself.

Exhibit D:

Baseball is now dead. There is nothing left for teams to do to turn a profit. Or is there…

Exhibit E:

…And NOW baseball is dead.