Instant Replay Confirms Pedroia Grand Slam Was 'Fricking Awesome!'
NEW YORK -- Officials testing Major League Baseball’s new Instant Replay system at Yankee Stadium confirmed that the grand slam hit by Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia on Wednesday night was “fricking awesome".
“Hey Gary, get a load of this,” said MLB President Bob DuPuy, motioning for umpiring crew chief Gary Cederstrom to join him at a replay monitor. “Sweet Christmas,” exclaimed Cederstrom, as he watched the ball easily clear the left-center field fence and come to rest in fabled Monument Park. “What an absolute frigging bomb.”
The game was held up for over 22 minutes as Pedroia’s eighth inning, bases-loaded blast, which put the finishing touches on Boston’s 11-3 blowout win, was replayed in slow motion over 36 times and reviewed from nine different camera angles -- first by MLB officials, then all four umpires, commissioner Bud Selig, TV crews from NESN, YES, and ESPN, a peanut vendor, and finally by David Robertson, the Yankee reliever who served up the game-breaking, soul-crushing, gravity-defying moonshot.
“Anything that goes that far ought to charge you for the second checked bag,” remarked Selig, who then pursed his lips and exhaled, in a failed attempt to make an appreciative whistling sound. “Whoo, doggie.”
Before taking the field for the bottom of the eighth, Pedroia and several Sox teammates visited the replay booth to rewind the video of Pedroia’s tater “about a hundred times" in an effort to determine the pitch speed (90 mph), type and location (flat 2-seamer hanging out over the plate like a damn grapefruit), what retired number the ball would’ve hit if hadn’t bounced into some protective netting (#16, Whitey Ford), what thoughts were going through the mind of Yankees senior VP Hank Steinbrenner as he was shown staring forlornly into the night (“I shoulda stuck to the ponies”), and the time listed on the center field scoreboard, indicating the exact moment the Yankees’ 2008 playoff hopes withered and died (9:55 pm ET).
“I think I’m going to like instant replay,” smirked Pedroia, as he searched for a replay angle from a MetLife blimp hovering over the stadium. “Let’s look at that fatty one more time, shall we?”
Officials and umpires also briefly convened in the 9th inning to confirm that Jason Giambi’s solo home run, which brought the Yankees within eight runs, was “utterly frigging irrelevant.”•
Other Things Confirmed by Instant Replay During Sox-Yanks Game
- David Ortiz totally had food stuck in his teeth during 1st inning at-bat.
- Groundskeeper dressed as Village People Indian Chief was just going through the motions during “YMCA”.
- Hot girl in Loge Box 474 does not appear to have a boyfriend.
- If you pause tape just right, Grim Reaper seen hovering over Derek Jeter’s left shoulder as he attempts to make plays up the middle.
- Paul Byrd has one funky-ass windup.
