Expecting to be terrible once again, Washington Nationals formally request exemption from 2009 season

From the Wait 'til this Year Humor Vault

Citing the fact that they have already had to play "31 freakin' games with this bunch of losers," Washington Nationals Manager Manny Acta submitted a formal request to the MLB commissioner's office asking for his team to be exempted from the 2009 baseball season.

"People around the league are complaining about how long spring training is," said Acta, clearly fighting back tears. "Oh yeah? Try playing with John Lannan as your ace, Joel Hanrahan as your closer and some guy named Anderson Hernandez as your second baseman. I can't believe ... I just can't believe it's not even the regular season yet."

MLB Commissioner Bud Selig, citing the fact that Nationals games "tend to produce more pain and suffering than pleasure and enjoyment," and adding that "there is not much evidence to indicate that Washington is in fact a viable baseball team," said he will take the request seriously. He did note, however, that granting the request could set a bad precedent, perhaps leading to similar requests by the Detroit Lions, Memphis Grizzlies, New York Islanders, and other teams across professional sports.

On a separate note, Selig indicated that he may personally draw up a request to exempt the Chicago Cubs from all postseason games.

MLB Commissioner Bud Selig, show here giving serious thought to the Washington Nationals' unique request.

World Series will now be called just Series

World Baseball Classic's refusal to "just go away" forces name change

From the Wait 'til this Year Humor Vault

Sixteen countries from six continents participated in the 2009 World Baseball Classic, shaming Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig into changing the name of MLB's decisive playoff round from "World Series" to simply "Series." MLB is comprised of teams from a paltry two countries and just one continent, and only one team--the Toronto Blue Jays--plays its home games outside of the U.S. Watching the WBC propelled Selig to make a change so as to better reflect the league's pathetically provincial makeup.

"We've been living a lie," said Selig. "Everyone knows it's not really a 'World' Series, but it wasn't until the World Baseball Classic shoved its way onto the scene that it really began to sound ridiculous. I mean, c'mon, a world series between the Boston Red Sox and Colorado Rockies? That's like calling an Olympic gold medalist an Intergalactic Champion."

The first WBC was played in 2006, and while Selig says he considered changing the name at that time, he held out hope that everyone would hate the WBC, and that "maybe they would just forget to play it ever again." When the international event returned this year, featuring live TV coverage of nearly every game and an exciting extra-inning championship game featuring two Asian teams, Selig knew the jig was up.

"The World Baseball Classic is here to stay," Selig grumbled. "The fact is, MLB's championship series is really just a series of games to determine the best team located north of the equator and between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. It's an Americanada series, or a Canadamerican series. But it's definitely not a world series. To make things easy, we're just going to go with 'Series.'"

When asked about the marketing challenge of promoting future winners as simply "Series Champions," Selig's eyes opened wide as he appeared to have an unpleasant epiphany, perhaps realizing that MLB's annual schedule features nearly 1,000 different series. Selig remained quiet, then stood up from the interview table and backed ever-so-slowly out of the press room.