As the season approaches

If baseball season is approaching, it must be time for me to rant about what a gigantic pudwhack Mike Hampton has turned into. An oblique muscle? What a wuss! What’s he been doing for the last two years – watching Oprah and eating friggin cheeseburgers?

I don’t know who’s the bigger pudwhack – Hampton or Mark “I’ve pitched ten innings in the last three seasons” Prior. Holy sheeee-ittt!!!

I’ve thought about contacting several Major League teams – you know, the ones that are paying bundles to chronic pudwhacks. Why don’t they ditch those guys and, instead, pay me the Major League minimum to miss just as many games?

My main offer is to the Giants. Why not take the heat off of Bonds for a change? Sign Foster for the league minimum – the sports writers will go nuts and forget all about Bonds for a while. I’ll miss as many starts as, say, David Wells would. And they could write columns about Foster and Wells ‘seperated at birth’ stuff. I’d miss just as many starts as Wells will for whoever has him, but I’d only be one-quarter the grumpy asshole and ten times more engaging, personable and entertaining. Instead of pestering Bonds, the writers could pester the 48-year-old never pitched an inning fat man while I regale them with Neo-Stengalisms, tales of cosmopolitan adventure AND public challenges to Curt Schilling for an ASL cage match. I’d bust their chops about their typos and blown deadlines and incite them with clever newspaper patois.

And all for a fraction of what Hampton, Prior or Wells will pull down for sitting on their hairy butts. What a deal. Where’s Bill Veeck when baseball needs him?