May 31, 2011

Wezen-Ball

Where's My Robot Baseball?!

by Larry Granillo

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In case you were getting bored with the present-day version of baseball, the Weekly World News has a solution:

An amazing new baseball league for robots only is making the "old-fashioned human version" of the sport obsolete, say analysts who argue that no matter how many performance-enhancing steroids the superstars pop and lie about later, they'll never be able to compete with machines that...

The article goes onto include a list of some of the robo-players' feats, including throwing 475 mph fastballs, launching home run balls into orbit with their titanium bats, and signing up to 25 "autographs and product-endorsement deals" at a time. Other benefits of the league include the unpredictability of their play, with a Star Wars-like explosion after an outfield collision cited as a great example.

The article was printed in a 2005 issue of the Weekly World News, though it reminds me of two other things: the video game Super Baseball 2020 and Futurama's "blernsball".

Farnsworth: He's good all right. But he's no Clem Johnson. And Johnson played back in the days when steroid injections were mandatory.
Bender: Clem Johnson? That skin bag wouldn't have lasted one pitch in the old Robot Leagues! Now Wireless Joe Jackson, there was a blern hitting machine!
Leela: Exactly! He was a machine designed to hit blerns! I mean come on! Wireless Joe was nothing but a programmable bat on wheels.
Bender: Oh and I suppose pitching at 5000 was just a modified howitzer.
Leela: Yep.

Man, now I just want to see robot ballplayers. When is Takira Nakamura going to get around to creating these leagues?