Beech Tree News Network

Being a Yankees fan this year is like dating someone who shows up looking great, buys you dinner, makes you think “this is it!” &  then farts during the first kiss. We started off hot full clip, best team in baseball, then… “the fart” & it stinks….Injuries, bad pitching, errors that outnumbered our runs,  the baserunning that lookd like it came straight out of a high school JV game. I told myself I wouldnt act this way again this year, but my blood pressure’s through the roof, & the nicotine pouches can’t keep up.

And you know what? I’ve finally reached the conclusion: Performance enhancing drugs should not only be allowed in professional sports they should be mandatory. Or @ the very least, highly encouraged.

Hear me out. …. If your job is to swing bats, run like hell, smash balls, eat dirt, & slide steel spikes up… you deserve chemical assistance. If your day requires you to boot a pigskin seventy yards, tackle refrigerator sized men, or literally incapacitate another humanbeing… then yes, you should get the chance to become better at your job.

Meanwhile, us regular people? We already pump ourselves full of PEDs for boring stuff. Coffee to wake us up, pills to knock us out, energy drinks to survive one more staff meeting. We destroy our brains with Netflix binges & TikTok rabbit holes …. But somehow we get judgy about an athlete taking on a needle so he can hit a ball farther than the Universe intended? Please.

If a grown man wants to shrink his crotch but inflate his wallet, I say let him! His body - His choice! Legalize everything. True freedom! The American Dream!  -….- Of course, that doesn’t mean you’re free from consequences. You get all juiced up & put your cat in the microwave? Straight to jail. Hulk-smash your wife’s car or her face? Straight to jail or the electric chair. You can’t handle it? Fine. But don’t rob the rest of us of the glorious spectacle of watching a wild-eyed outfielder launch a baseball clean & into low orbit.

Because honestly if I have to watch another Yankee reliever throw a 93 mph “fastball” that gets deposited into the bleachers, I’ll take all the steroids myself just to get through the season.

Xtra Note: Funny enough, as I finish writing this, the Yankees are actually about to cap a four-game winning streak. Go figure. The game started on a two-hour rain delay, it’s almost 11 p.m., and they’re up 12–2 in the bottom of the seventh. The game is all but over.

I should be in bed , I’ve got work in the morning, my eyelids are heavy, & my body is begging for mercy. But here I sit, still watching, still pacing, still muttering at the TV like my opinion changes anything.

Maybe this is my drug. Forget nicotine, forget caffeine. The highs, the lows, the late nights, the false hope, the heartbreak….it’s all part of the same addictive cycle.

My name is Josh Hampton, & I’m a Yankaholic? ….

…. Wait, that doesn’t sound right.

****

Written by a human being: Josh Hampton / Accompanying “Art” created by: A Robot. *****