Dusty Baker benches Bruce, Bailey

CINCINNATI, OH — Seemingly without any explanation whatsoever, Dusty Baker has announced that he no longer intends to keep Jay Bruce or Homer Bailey in his lineup.

“I don’t know,” Baker said. “They just sort of look a bit different than I thought they would. It’s nothing with their play – their play is fine, clearly – but I think their names are a little bit deceptive, and we are not about deception on the Reds. We like to keep things above board.”

Baker said he had heard so much about each of the player’s athleticism that he was surprised when he saw what they actually looked like.

“To be honest, when I saw Bruce for the first time in the cab, I thought maybe the cab driver was actually Bruce and they were pulling the old switcheroo. Turns out it was just some dude who emigrated from Equatorial Guinea,” the clearly troubled Reds headman admitted to SSNN. “Then this Bailey kid comes up out of nowhere, and he’s basically a carbon copy of Cole Hamels. Only a righty, so it’s like Cole Hamels in a mirror. It’s freaky, dude.”

At this point, Baker is not sure what Bruce or Bailey can do to get back in the lineup. But as long as he’s feeling misled by their names, he is not likely to change his mind.

“I don’t know what it’s going to take, frankly,” Baker said. “Maybe one of them can trade names with Milton Bradley – that would be one step closer to everything making sense.”

It’s going to be tough for this sport to sweep any nations, but it’s still pretty frickin’ cool!