JUICING THE BALL GAME

I'm well aware that this premise has been beaten to death by everything from Mad magazine to Letterman's Top Ten List, but the fact is that the so-called National Pastime continues to threaten to become the National Naptime. Major league baseball has become a kind of Nytol with box scores. That's one of the reasons for the emergence and spread of Fantasy Leagues: to create some contrived reason for us to take interest in a game that increasingly fails to hold our attention on its own merits. With that in mind, it is, once again, time to offer up some innovations that will get fans, and even non-fans, really watching the games again.

--After each home run, all the players on the batter's team, including the batter, must do tequila shots--the hefty two-ouncers.
--If a pitched ball hits the batter, before proceeding to first base the batter gets one free throw of the ball, from a distance of fifty feet, back at the pitcher.
--Any woman who successfully streaks topless completely across the outfield wins a season ticket.
--Replace the tedious seventh inning stretch with a public burning of George Steinbrenner in effigy.
--Instead of uniform numbers, put the players' salaries on the back of the uniforms, to aid the fans in assessing, and loudly commenting on, various players' actual value.
--One in every hundred game balls, inserted at random and unmarked, is chemically rigged to explode upon impact.
--If any pitcher blows a lead of five or more runs, the game will be halted while the pitcher is taken to a "hot seat" near the dugout and subjected to a massive electric shock.
--All outfielders will be required to play their position on Segway transporters.
--During the "dead time" while relievers take warmup pitches, liven things up with Alarmingly Obese Umpire Wind Sprints.
--Four words: Randy Johnson on crack.

Any further suggestions will be most welcome.