t took congressional involvement to break the dyke, but baseball commissioner Bud “Charisma� Selig finally admitted to reporters this week that Major League Baseball has a serious problem with Gatorade. The performance-enhancing beverage, known in baseball circles as “The Juice,� has been giving modern ballplayers an unfair advantage over their historical counterparts for years, due to its advanced electrolyte-replacing technology and deliciously thirst-quenching lemon-lime flavor.

“Who knows how many home runs Babe Ruth could have hit if he wasn’t thirsty all the time?� questioned baseball historian and still living at home middle-aged guy Roger Bankercruff. “The number would have been astronomical. With all the hot dogs that guy ate, plus the fact that he never, ever drank anything but highly-dehydrating beer, even during games or when brushing his teeth, the evidence points to Ruth leaning heavily on death’s door for most of his playing career. Which makes the man’s accomplishments obviously all the more impressive. If he hadn’t been near-fatally dehydrated, not to mention completely bereft of vital electrolytes, for the whole of his adult life, we’d be talking about the one time he didn’t hit a home run, and how Barry Bonds isn’t fit to sniff the Babe’s grotesquely stained tidy whiteys.�

Pressed for an imaginary number of home runs Babe Ruth would have hit if we could go back in time with a case of Gatorade and convince the Babe that it was futuristic green beer, Bankercruff struggled with a calculator and his counting fingers for several minutes before deciding “10,000 home runs is not an unreasonable estimate,� had Ruth been hopped up on Gatorade during his playing days. Such a total would leave Bonds roughly 9,300 short in his quest to become baseball’s all-time home run leader, a number the Giants slugger may not reach without further developments in human growth hormone, Teflon knees, or Bonds’ head being re-attached to some kind of mechanical hitting machine.

Active home run leader Bonds, as well as notorious Michelin men Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Jason Giambi, have all come under fire in recent months for their performance and inhumanly well-hydrated appearances. A recent congressional hearing saw fan favorite McGwire dodge the issue of his Gatorade use like a ninja frog, virtually confirming fan suspicions that Big Mac had been “hydrating� for years. McGwire’s suspiciously non-parched speaking voice did nothing to dispel these concerns, in spite of the slugger’s claims that he had only used questionable but unbanned beverages such as Red Bull and Diet Rock Star. Baseball stars Rafael Palmeiro, Sammy Sosa and Curt Schilling conspicuously drank large quantities of water during the hearings, drawing attention to their obvious lack of artificial hydration.

In response, Major League Baseball has instituted a new Gatorade testing policy and tougher new rules, including a ten-minute talking-to for fifth-time offenders. Critics, however, have been calling the penalties too lenient and point to the new pink passionfruit Gatorade flavor that is rumored to be undetectable during drug screenings, and the use of other beverages such as Mountain Dew as a masking agent.

So far, the only player punished for Gatorade use has been Tampa Bay salary moocher Alex Sanchez, who was singled out after league officials noticed the green sweat on his jersey, which Sanchez blamed on his intense diet regiment of wheat grass and lime Play-Doh.

Other suspected hydrators have offered up similarly lame excuses, including Gary Sheffield of the Yankees, who admitted to performance-enhancing beverage use during an interview earlier this year. Sheffield explained that he had used Red Bull accidentally after it was given to him by Barry Bonds’ trainer, who told him it was baby aspirin.

“It didn’t help me, though,� explained Sheffield. “I mean, it made my headache go away, but I couldn’t hit a fastball any better. And I was up for two days scrubbing the grout in my bathroom. That shit was nasty dirty.�

Red Bull and Jolt Cola are both currently legal under Major League Baseball’s rules, but have been banned by the Olympics for years due to their hyperactive benefits, starting when 230-pound pipe-fitter Mark Tungley of Ohio won the Tour De France accidentally in 1998.

“Iwasjustonvacation, outforabikeridetoblowoffsomesteam,� explained Tungley, speaking at a high rate of speed and sweating like a beer glass in spite of the cool weather. “Jesus,thisRedBull stufftasteslikecandy, Ican’tdrinkenough. Yourememberthose sweettartscandies? Thisislikedrinkingsweettarts, exceptwithout allthechewing. It’sawesome.�

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You know, Shorty, we've seen some amazing damned things in our day. What with everything being all techmalogicalized and whatnot, it can make your head spin. It seems like just yesterday we was listenin' to Cracker Barnes on the ol' phonograph. Now look at us, Shorty! Now we got Cracker Barnes on the eight-track, and we can listen to it in that pickup that's half-buried in Davey Krupp's front yard, no less. It buggles the mind, Shorty.

Seems like we turn our back for a minute, and they put a man up there on the moon in his jammy-jams. And then they make up some new-fangled gasoline lawn-mower when my push-mower still works fine. Damn. Then the next thing you know, they're inventin' little tiny people to go inside all kinds of things. Remember when Sonny's cousin Jojo visited from the city last year? An I'll be dipped in shit if he didn't have him one of them new-fangled cars with the little small person in the door who tells you when your lights is on or you left the door wide open when you went and passed out drunk in that ditch. Kinda scary, ain't it Shorty? Kinda spooky is what I say.

But I have to admit, out of all of them techmanalogical whoodangs they gone and dreamt up out there, I am quite a stretch appreciative for one of them, and you know without askin' that that's them Chicken in a Biskets. Dang if them ain't some good biskets, even if they is a bit flat and more of a cracker than a bisket proper. But I can forgive them that since those clever boys still did found some way to fit a chicken in there. They must be Missouri boys since you can't leave no Arkansas boys alone with a chicken more than ten minutes if you don't want trouble. And Missouri boys is known far an wide for fittin' chickens in places you didn't think chickens should fit.

And believe you me, Shorty, that there's not one small task. Remember a few years back when the altimenator went out in the Brown Maggot and I couldn't get it to start, and I couldn't get to town for no three weeks and I ran plum out of them Chicken Biskets? Remember how I was schemin' on how to make up my own Chicken in a Biskets here at home for so long? Well give up now, Shorty, 'cause you just ain't gonna do it. I tried everything and the closest I ever came was some real flat chickens and a box of crackers stuffed up a rooster's ass. It was a sorry scene, it was. You know after that I gave up and wasted little time diggin' an altimenator out off old Sonny's Dodge when he was laid up with that bout of gully shingles, and I was back in town buyin' Chicken Biskets before you could say medicated ointment.

How they do it, Shorty? You think they got some kind of machine that goes and minaturesizes them chickens so they can fit them in the little holes in them crackers? Seems like that'd take an awful lot of chickens, which would tend toward the spendy side of town. Maybe they minaturesizes 'em when they're just hatched so they don't got to feed them too much chicken feed before they stuff 'em into those biskets.

Or maybe they just got great big biskets and they stuff them chickens in BEFORE they minaturesize the whole works! Damn, Shorty, I think that might work! Listen here, I'll rustle up some chickens from Sonny's yard and bake up a big ol' bisket, you find us a minaturesize machine. Hot damn, Chicken Biskets here we come! Those clever Nabisco bastards will never know what him 'em.

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"Great Burping Furbies!" screamed the Dane wearing the hat of flames. Whoozat? Whazis? Time takes a moment to shave it's kneecaps. Everything slows, like molasses out a chipmunk's nose. You remember the time you were on the Ferris Wheel at the fair, and your great grandma barfed sawdust over the side, and when the wind kicked up it looked like a swarm of whiteflies chasing a fat little boy through the Midway. Good Gremlin Gonads, what am I thinking this for? Now? I need medical punctuation! An apostrophe! An apostle! Someone take me to Sea World, and don't spare the pistons!

No no no, them teeter-totters won't get you to the hospital today. Them's union totters. Jimmeny Jumpropes! Look at the headlamps on that brunette! Wait. I smell burning man-hair. Am I still on fire? Great Tidy Wipers, I am! Shitbells and Josephine! Somebody get me a Handiwipe and a Shasta! I'm too young to provide heat for cooking and recreation!

You remember the time you saw a donkey catch on fire at a propane-tank-throwing contest when you were just a boy. Good Lord Wencelas, was that donkey meat stringy. You never forgot the look on that donkey's face when he looked at you, all on-fire and the like, and recited word for word a report you gave in the third grade from a book about asparagus.

Suddenly you regret using the fire extinguisher to frost those giant mini-wheats you made in the garage. You consider buying an off-season airline ticket to Bort, a small town in Manitoba that surely has snow by this time of the year. But remember what happened the last time you tried to buy a ticket while on fire? You might as well try ordering ranch dressing on your applesauce. Damn damn damn.

You finally understand all them paintins with the meltin' clocks and horseheads and whatnot. No wonder them giraffes was on fire, they must've been trying to hook up a paintball gun to a lawnmower, too! Clever goddamn giraffes! Damn if it isn't hot in here.

Right about then you scream somethin' in Spanish and dive headfirst into the picklin' tank, but turns out them cucumbers is more flammables than they look on the radio, cause the whole damn contraption goes up like a ricepaper hut on Arson Day. Sweet Stammering Dandies! Nedder's having lunch with Joan of Arc!

Now most usual times you're on fire, you have some revelations about the meanings of life or how to cut them lawn with a helicopter but there's rarely enough time to put but two of those to use before some well-meaning passer-by douses you with a garden-hose (or, if you wander into a football stadium, them huge buckets of Gatorade) and you have to start her all over again. Damn-jabney. Sometimes there aren't enough hours in a day.

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