BINGHAMTON, NY — Two years ago, students and faculty were astonished to learn that Binghamton University had received a 60 million dollar grant to build a large, state-of-the-art baseball stadium. Students and faculty were equally shocked upon finding out that Binghamton University has a baseball team. Students and staff were sure that the egregious amount of money being thrown at this issue would certainly help the Bearcats to score some runs, bringing pride to the University. Dining hall faculty at Binghamton University had emphatically put their support behind the baseball team’s large cash influx, with one going so far as to comment: “If that sixty-million dollars — which could’ve went towards increasing my wages — was instead funneled into a new stadium so that our Bearcats could finally win a game, then so be it. Go Bearcats!”
Excitement reached a fever pitch on April 29th, 2022, as countless Bearcats fans flocked to the newly constructed Baseball Stadium Complex to celebrate its debut. “I just really, really wanted to name something after myself,” said anonymous donor Reginald Baseball at the grand opening of the new stadium.
Four months or so have passed since then, and the Binghamton Bearcats have not yet been able to turn their luck around, leaving fans of the baseball team discouraged. In an interview after facing yet another humiliating loss, one Bearcats fan had this to say: “We didn’t give them sixty-million dollars so that they can keep losing matches for us… On second thought, maybe they did. Is there an app I can use to bet on college baseball teams?”
Furthermore, students and faculty attending games at the Complex have reported a mysterious widespread phenomenon. Most are unable to remember the games themselves, but rather can only experience a strange mixture of embarrassment, anger, and dejection when attempting to recall them. We decided to ask a group of Freshmen baseball enthusiasts in May if they could tell us one thing that had happened during the second half of the third inning following a matchup against the Stony Brook Seawolves. This query was initially met by silence, until one of the Freshmen reluctantly decided to give their input: “It’s like there’s an hour of my life that went missing. I can’t tell you what happened during the game, or even if there was a game, but all I can tell you is this: It was bad.”
The employee responsible for portraying the school mascot — Baxter Bearcat — was also reportedly disappointed in the school’s decision to allocate these funds toward the new stadium, wishing instead that they could’ve been granted some alternative mascot costumes to wear, lamenting that the suit they currently wear, “smells like sweat,” and that the suit is comprised of “more than just my sweat — like, everyone’s sweat. We’re looking towards at least twenty, thirty years of build-up. I mean, I carry that costume-smell with me wherever I go now. Deodorant doesn’t even work on me, anymore. At most, deodorant only, like, neutralizes the odor.”
All of this pressure from the Bearcats’ support base has left the school’s Division I Baseball team wondering if they should “start trying.” Drastic measures are currently being taken as well to hopefully boost the success of the baseball team, as relief pitcher, Hugh Janus, resolves to incorporate more sunflower seeds and Big League Chew into his diet. Janus is also planning to wear his jersey to lectures and to frat parties with hopes of impressing sorority girls, and is urging his teammates to join him in these efforts. Coach Tim Sinicki is reportedly even going as far as to discontinue the team’s procedure of recording baseball practices over Zoom, leaving team members with no choice but to attend practices in person. “My players keep leaving their cameras off. I can’t tell whether or not they’re doing their stretches at all,” sighed Sinicki in a post-game interview. “For all I know, my players might not even be taking notes. And their away game is due in three days!”
Ultimately, time will tell whether the completion of the Baseball Stadium Complex can increase university-wide interest in the baseball team, as many students continue to work up the gumption to walk all the way there from their dorms.
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