In their annual meeting in January of 2020 (the Year of the Optometrist), the Major League Baseball Rules Committee unanimously agreed to ban the playing of short snippets of popular songs before each player’s at bat.  The practice had become popular in the earlier part of the century, but became what the committee called, “Just stupid.”

Their decision was a direct response to superstar Coco Pebbles’ multi-million dollar contract, which insisted that the Seattle Mariners play the song “F*** th* N***** B***th th***gh th* B****t H*** in H** H*a*” from the album **nc*d **nt by The Ps*ch*tic N*n-N***** **th**f*****s, featuring **w J**ú*.  Pebbles’ contract specifically stated that nothing could be bleeped out. Stated Pebbles, “H***, *o*****u**er, there wouldn’t be nothin’ left.”

Immediately after his first at bat, Pebbles’ team mate Raoul Orlau summed up the feelings of apparently every major league baseball player when he stated, “Hell!  If he gets to pick his own song, so do I!”  Raoul chose the opening refrain from “The Sound of Music.”

By the end of April, aside from all the stupid songs that had always been played, among others, one could hear at any given ballpark in both the major and minor leagues the National Anthems from nineteen different countries (none of which could be appropriately shortened), the school fight songs from at least 50 universities, 18 high schools, and one junior high, "Freebird," the “Beverly Hillbilly’s” and “Gilligan’s Island” theme songs, as well as the theme from “Peter Gun,” one very loud fart, the Beatle’s “Revolution #9” (in particular the part with the weird crying), “Amazing Grace” and “In the Garden,” the Barney Song, “Happy Birthday to You,” “Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer,” “Hava Nigila,” “If You Think I’m Sexy,” and what could best be described as “psychotic screaming from a hamster on drugs.”

Perhaps a fan in St. Louis said it best when she stated, “I don’t think I was ever more ready for a season to end.  It makes me thankful we didn’t make the playoffs.”