NEW YORK—All 750 Major League Baseball players reported extreme increases in their number of hits, RBIs, and home runs Saturday after closely studying and mimicking Albert Pujols’ batting stance and swing. “I saw him getting so many hits and figured, hey, I ought to do exactly what he’s doing,” said Royals shortstop Alicides Escobar, who was batting .226 until copying Pujols, and has now gone 39-for-50 with 28 RBIs and 13 home runs. “All I do is get in the batter’s box, spread my feet way apart like he does, hold the bat in the exact same spot, and then crack another dinger. I don’t know if it helps me to copy that facial expression he makes when he waits for a pitch, but I figured it couldn’t hurt.” In related news, all 30 pitching staffs have claimed that their efforts to combat the offensive explosion by copying Roy Halladay’s windup is working, as evidenced by the fact that Joba Chamberlain no longer looks like a helpless idiot when he’s on the mound.

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