There's a lot to hate about the summertime.  It's hot.  Bratty kids released from school get up at six in the morning to scream at the top of their lungs right under your bedroom window.  You come to the realization that many hardworking adults are doing their part to protect the ozone layer by abandoning a specific aerosol product--deodorant.

But the annoyances listed above are minor inconveniences compared to the absolute egg-sucking nadir of summer--baseball.  Hey, I'm as American as Mom's microwaved pizza; nonetheless, I find the "national pastime" about as exciting as a Bert Convy film festival.  I'd rather be dunked in honey and squat on a wasp nest than be subjected to The Only Thing In The World Less Entertaining Than "Morning Zoo Keeper" Radio Personalities.

Baseball is a game designed for anal retentives whose entire lives revolve around impressing fellow sub-geeks with their vast storehouse of thoroughly useless statistics and minor details.  (Sort of makes them the Trekkies of the sports world.)  Saturnian death saucers could be leveling major world capitols and tunnel-visioned baseball bozos would sit around arguing over which first baseman had the most successful bunt ratio with men on second base while facing left-handed pitchers in 1942.

Remember the scene in Taxi Driver when Robert DeNiro said, "There's no escape for God's lonely man"?  That's how any sensible corner barfly will feel by October after having been involuntarily exposed to 109 hours of televised baseball per day.

The aural torture is two-fold.  One ear will be subjected to announcers who think it's clever to pin the monikers "Bud" and "Miller" on brothers surnamed Leicht (to the enthusiastic approval of the rubes.)  With the other ear you'll have little choice but to overhear the never-ending--and always monotonous--argument over whether Player A from 1912 was better than a recent hotshot.  That's like fighting over whether Buddy Rich was a better drummer than Rush's Neil Peart. (The answer, of course, is "yes" if for no other reason than Buddy never wrote awful lyrics to pretentious songs.)

Some baseball buffoons say they enjoy the game because the strategy of shuffling the line-up is akin to "human chess."  Break out your high school yearbook and take a look at the zomboids who belonged to the Chess Club.  Do those creatures look like a fun bunch, or what?

Undoubtedly, the most pathetic people in the sport are the managers.  Here we have a group of 62-year-olds who: can't see their feet for their beer bellies; never pitch, run or bat; yet, insist on donning the same tight uniforms as the players.  The idea is as absurd as the Secretary Of Agriculture wearing bib overalls to a cabinet meeting.

Baseball will remain lethally dull as long as it maintains its core audience of knotheaded jocks, glove-wearing sissies, drunken blowhards and tobacco-chewing yahoos.  Worst of all, baseball attracts an extraordinary number of Earth's least necessary species, the pseudo-intellectual known for loudly spouting faux pearls of wisdom at the drop of a name.

What can be done to make the sport at least tolerable?  (Thought you'd never ask.)  Here are a few suggestions:

(1) Make the game explosive--literally.  Hide a single land mine in a field location known only to the home plate umpire.  Furthermore, the ball should contain a time bomb set to explode at a point randomly selected by a computer and unbeknownst to any participant.  That will eliminate--in one way or another--the type of pitchers who waste time between throws going through a series of neurotic ticks.  

(2) Change the footwear.  Forget spikes.  A different shoe style should be assigned for each day of the week.  Think of the possibilities for novel plays if the baseballers wore high heels, platform shoes, scuba fins, roller skates, wooden Dutch footgear, etc.  "Flip flops" would add an audio dimension heretofore sorely missing.

(3) Reward fans for attending.  Give $1000 to anyone catching a foul ball and ten grand for a homer.  Not only is attendance guaranteed to increase but so is audience participation.  Offer free burials to spectators grabbing an exploding ball and those murdered during scrambles and pile-ons.  

(4) Administer bonuses and penalties for stolen bases.  Stuff second and third with prizes.  To add suspense, occasionally fill a bag with road maps, rubber chickens, live worms and similar worthless trinkets a la a Let's Make A Deal "zonk."  If a runner successfully advances, he gets to keep the content of the base.  However, in the event he is caught stealing he will be sentenced to prison just like in the real world.  As an extra incentive, players stealing home merit a free house to be provided by the opposing team's owner.

(5) Replace umpires with topless dancers.  Encourage the ladies to jump up and down after each good play or hit.  No longer will mass exits occur when the score is 12-0 in the bottom of the seventh inning.  Teams can make up for spoiled players' ridiculously overpriced salaries through income generated by binocular rentals.

(6) Shorten the game.  The first team to outscore the other in an inning wins.  A time limit of fifty minutes is sufficient.  In the event of a tie, the winner will be determined by team captains competing in a single hand of draw poker.  Even with the traditional post-game time wasters such as pointless replays the whole mess can be wrapped up in an hour.

Imagine the difference my rule changes would make:  Bottom of the first, the score tied at zero.  Leadoff batter goes to first base on a walk and tries to steal second.  Catcher throws to shortstop covering the bag; but, the ball bounces off his snowshoe, rolling into center where a pursuing fielder blows up after stepping on a land mine.  Second baseman picks up the ball and tries to throw out the runner who is now heading home.  The toss to the catcher is perfect; however, the ball explodes, clearing a path for the runner to score.  The topless dancers celebrate by performing a bump-and-grind to a bluesy rendition of "Take Me Out To The Ball Game."  Game over.