NL Central teams petition to have games ended after eight innings

NEW YORK, NY – In an unprecedented move, management from four of the teams within the National League Central Division have petitioned MLB commissioner Bud Selig to allow their teams to shorten their games from the standard nine innings to just eight innings.

Representatives from the Chicago Cubs, Houston Astros, Milwaukee Brewers and St. Louis Cardinals collaborated after they saw their respective closers blow a combined 16 saves through early May. The Cardinals’ Jason Isringhausen and the Brewers’ Eric Gagne have already lost their jobs as ninth inning men, and more may follow. Isringhausen, Gagne, the Cubs’ Kerry Wood and the Astros’ Jose Valverde have given up 11 home runs so far this season, and none has been what was expected of them.

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Cubs manager Lou Piniella agreed with the move, saying, “It only makes sense. So far, closers in the Central plain stink. Getting rid of the ninth helps everybody, because then those guys don’t have to pitch. We can keep everybody else in their role.”

In Milwaukee, Brewers manager Ned Yost thought eliminating the ninth inning was a good idea for other reasons. “I think it will improve everybody’s health, to be honest with you,” he said. “There’s been a rash of ulcers throughout the division, and I’m hearing that fans have gotten sick to their stomachs, and I even heard that one fan had a heart attack and died after watching Eric blow another save. We should do this for that reason alone.”

It is said that the other two teams in the division, the Pittsburgh Pirates and Cincinnati Reds are vehemently against the proposal, as they have had no problems with their own ability to close out games. However, SSNN has learned that commissioner Selig is seriously considering shortening games only when the four teams play each other, because he is worried that kids will see the situation and be so turned off from the game, they would be lost as fans of baseball forever.

However, the most compelling argument came from St. Louis manager Tony LaRussa. “Fantasy baseball is really important for the health of baseball, right?” LaRussa asked. “Well, guess what … people all over the country are furious with us because most of the closers in our division suck. So we decided, if we wanna get our fans back, we just gotta get rid of our closers. And, voila, our fans are back! We thought for a second about what would happen to the Pirates and Reds, since their closers are pitching fine. But then we realized, they don’t have any fans anyway. Ha!”