Rabbit Ball: Whodunit?

The question is very simple: If the baseball is juiced up, who's responsible? It's like Nicaragua: If the money got there from Iran, somebody—some person, some human being—must be behind it. Who? That's why we're having a congressional investigation. But the same sensible, logical folks who seek to get to the bottom of the arms-sales business see all the home runs being hit in the major leagues, and right away they start moaning that there sure is a rabbit inside the ball. O.K., so how did the rabbit get in there? And why?

In all the world there are only so many possibilities. Consider them:

?Some guy in Haiti, a foreman or part-time voodoo type, is doing this to the balls just because he hates America or hates baseball.

?By human error, thousands of the wrong balls are being sent to the major leagues! I actually read this. The majors may be getting, by mistake, thousands of brisk, vivacious balls meant for colleges or Japan or Wrigley Field or some other quaint place.

?The major league owners had a secret meeting and agreed to liven up the ball. Since then, for months, they have kept a blood oath and not told another living soul.

?Acting completely on his own, commissioner Peter Ueberroth, sort of a rich man's Ollie North, went to Haiti, changed the ball and returned, undercover.

?Ueberroth huddled in conspiracy with the two league presidents, Bobby Brown, a former major league player and heart surgeon, and Bart Giamatti, a former college president, and said, "Hey, guys, let's juice up the ball and not tell anybody." And they did.

?Colonel Mustard did it in the laboratory with a rabbit.

That's it. Which plot do you vote for? And you must choose. Because nothing else is rationally possible.

Moreover, if the ball has been tricked up, why? Baseball has been doing just fine, and, as every mother's son knows, home run hitters drive Cadillacs—or Jaguars nowadays—so why would the Establishment, professing to be thrifty, act in a way calculated precisely to give the employees a financial advantage?