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Vatican CardinalsThe Vatican spokesman announced yesterday that the Holy City is planning to form its own baseball team and to enter MLB as the "Vatican Cardinals". The spokesman also said that this surprising move is part of an effort to mitigate the demoralizing effect of the bottomless coffers of the New York Yankees. As many Cardinals' fans refer to the Yankees as the "Evil Empire", it has been surmised that this crusade has in fact been a part of the much more general quest to eradicate evil as such. If that's the case, the next phase will surely involve installing a purgatory inside the Dallas Cowboys' stadium and converting badminton players into goodminton players. The new team will start in the understaffed West division of the AL, where they won’t be directly under the Yankees' nefarious influence, but will have an opportunity to play them a couple of times per year. And teach them a moral lesson or two while doing that. During these high profile games the team's ethical therapists will be on stand by on a rotational basis. During the season, the team will be stationed in Vatican, LA (just north of Lafayette), a small community known for the complete lack of sporting events and the prevalence of combine harvesters in the Pizza Parlor parking lot. Although its population of 400 is unlikely to make impressive attendance figures, hosting an MLB team in rural Louisiana will provide local folks with a welcome alternative to jumping jacks, potato wedges and organizing the annual pig-weighing contest. In winter, the players will be called back to Rome, where they will spend the off-season in meditation and repentance for their errors. Some of the team officials may choose to hibernate during this period. In the interest of keeping the game reasonably fair, the Vatican Cardinals vowed that they will restrict themselves to only one divine intervention per inning and they will not be summoning any angels to lend them a helping wing, be it in the infield or in the outfield. In order to account for their feats, the MLB board is considering an extension of the traditional RHE statistics to RHEM: runs, hits, errors and miracles. Should the new team win the World Series, its name will be changed to commemorative Saint Louisiana Cardinals.
© 2004 Jan Rehacek
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The Book of Cardinals 2004Part I.Inning: 4This text is completely fictitious and is merely a reflection
of a coincidence of names. If you would like to learn about the
actual Vatican, please visit their webpage:
Part I. Namesakes
Part II. 7th Inning Stretch of Imagination
Part III. Three Dreams |
