There is a fog that settles over Yankee Stadium just before game time. It could be the most sunny, blue-skied day ever, and yet the fog is there. Dark, cold, depressing—like most Yankees fans. And when you step out onto the field, and breathe in the air around you, an overwhelming, dizzying, nausea hits you like freight train. Opposing players have grown to expect it, but no one ever really grows accustomed to it. One could travel to the deepest bowels of the earth (which, many would argue, is Yankee Stadium) and not experience such a foul stench. Recently, the Environmental Protection Agency has labeled the collective bad breath of Yankees fans to be an epidemic, and have said that action must be taken before there is an environmental crisis.
“It’s not like we haven’t tried to take action,” said a high-ranking Yankees official. “We hand out free high-strength peppermint Altoids to fans before the game, but they just throw those metal boxes at opposing players. We tried giving them those Listerine Breath Strips, but they just put them in their beers to add to the alcohol content.” He went on to explain that in the old days they used to just hose the fans down when they entered the park. “You know, like the humans in Planet of the Apes. Then we’d douse them with disinfectant like the new prisoners in Shawshank Redemption. But Amnesty International cracked down on us, and now this crisis has ensued.”
“The mass bad breath can definitely cloud your thinking, so to speak” said Terry Francona. “Before I took this job, Grady Little called me and confided that he had no memory of leaving Pedro in that ALCS Game Seven in 2003. When he got back to his hotel that night and his head cleared, he was horrified when he got the news. Before I make any decisions during a game, I go back into the clubhouse and use these special oxygen machines we bring with us. It helps. But we still have to burn all our clothes and equipment after every game, and that gets pretty costly. It’s never easy in Yankee Stadium.”
bill@callofthegreenmonster.com
