Aww, Man, Now Baseball's Ruined

The ol' baseball stadium used to be the stomping ground of ludicrously overpaid megalomaniacs who could round the bags in a matter of minutes and adjust their wayward jockstraps with naught but a flick of the wrist. Dribbling chaw juice and profanities, these titans were the stuff of legend--doe-eyed children all across America and Canada looked to the denizens of the diamonds as unto gods and heroes from another age.

But now baseball is really ruined. The admission last week by Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi that they had taken performance-enhancing substances on a regular basis destroyed the heretofore-unblemished reputation of all of the boys of summer. What? What is this? Do you mean to tell me that when men of average build, within a space of five days, become hulking behemoths rippling with muscles that all of it, all of the otherworldly prowess and lion-like power and grace, is a sham? How could this be? Oh, baseball, we never doubted you, not for one second, until this sad December when all the lights went out on all of our fields of dreams.

Where have you gone, Jason Giambi? Our nation turns its sated eyes to you. And Barry, great bulk marbled with riverine agility and supple twitch, can you step out of the dugout one last time to say that none of this is true? Now our children will have to find some other self-worshiping millionaire to look up to, some other miserly drug addict after whom to model their own lives. You've really let us down, baseball. We never, never saw this coming.