Tweaking sports rules for our new viral reality

For a lot of us, sports are an outlet for the stresses of daily life. We need them now more than ever. Since I am a patriot who never asks what my country can do for me, I humbly present my plan to get the show on the road.

Major League Baseball

Why can’t MLB play the first two months of the season on PlayStation? For example, the Dodgers were going to host the Giants at Dodger Stadium on March 26. Well, this Thursday at 7:10 p.m., the Giants’ leadoff hitter, Mauricio Dubon, takes his PlayStation controller in his hands and awaits Dodgers starting pitcher Clayton Kershaw’s first offering. Dubon is sitting in his den in Foster City sipping an Old Milwaukee while Kershaw is flopped on a cheap webbed beach lounge chair in his garage outside of Dallas.

Kershaw presses the A and B buttons simultaneously and drops one of his patented curveballs into the strike zone. The other eight Dodgers position players are holding controllers at their respective homes across the globe. Dubon pops one up to the right.

Dodgers second baseman Gavin Lux, slumped in a giant pink beanbag chair that’s supporting and suffocating him at the same time, is suddenly distracted by his mother asking him if he wants pepperoncinis on his Velveeta sandwich. Dubon’s ball drops between him and first baseman Max Muncy. Muncy didn’t notice Lux was having issues because Muncy was fixated on a suspicious mole he just noticed on his left big toe next to the strap on his souvenir Margaritaville flip flop. Dubon is safe at first and the Giants No. 2 hitter, Brandon Crawford, jogging on a treadmill in his mancave outside of Scottsdale, wipes the sweat off of his controller and comes to bat. And so, it goes for nine innings.

Teams will be able to play outside someday. I propose that there be only 24 people in the stadium. Each team would have nine players, with one of the players also serving as a manager like Pete “I never bet on baseball. No wait, come to think of it, I did bet on baseball” Rose did for the Cincinnati Reds in 1984-86.

Every player would be cocooned in a Neil Armstrong “One small step for man” spacesuit in their team colors. The lone umpire would be hermetically sealed in a small repurposed Soviet Army guard shack behind the mound. There would be one announcer for both teams. He would be uber talented since he’d be translating each play into English, Spanish, Japanese, and Korean at the speed of that guy machine-gunning the disclaimer at the end of every credit card debt commercial on the radio.

A woman would serve as general manager, public address announcer, organist, and scoreboard operator. She’d also be the team photographer, nacho maker, and souvenir stand carnival barker.

Another guy would be the usher, groundskeeper, restroom attendant, parking lot cashier, and foul ball chaser. Each team would have one fan which would result in the shortest Wave in the history of organized sports. And in a satisfying twist of fate, the players would gang up, chug beer and yell insults at the two fans over some minor personal flaw instead of the other way around.

National Basketball Association

The NBA would be a little tougher nut to crack since the guys play in their underwear on a court inside a big room. Again, one fan per team. They’d be seated on opposite sides of the arena in sections so high up their ushers would have to be Sherpa guides with at least eight trips to the top of Everest.

Each player would wear Gucci leather gloves and have a 12-foot-wide Hula Hoop attached to his waist. This would keep defenders at least six feet away from them at all times. The opposition’s defense would consist mostly of loudly insulting the other player’s bank account balance and the lack of an even shine on his $250,000 Lamborghini.

National Hockey League

NHL players wear a lot of protective gear so my only suggestions are that each team’s one fan be encased in NHL-approved ice, the referee should be a Skynet killer drone that hovers over the penalty box, and the Zamboni driver doubles as a security guard who tackles the one fan who, after being accidentally thawed by a killer drone laser blast, sprints across the ice in a flesh-colored body stocking.

In addition, in order to limit exposure, each team will have a Macaroni penguin and Kodiak bear on the ice in place of two human players at all times. It will be the first time the Boston Bruins actually have a bruin in their lineup.

Come on people. We can make American sports great again. And that ain’t fake news.