Sports In The Year 2001

I didn't much like either team and I used my revolutionary new Home Invective system pretty often. Home Invective is an inexpensive ($1 a game) state-of-the-art spectator involvement program, exclusive to baseball. Any advice, insults or obscenities fans yell at their TV screen are automatically and immediately piped into the crowd noise at the stadium. The volume of Home Invective can be adjusted from the lowest decibels, called Conscientious Objection, to the highest, called Leather Lung. Baseball's Home Invective makes a joke of the NFL's wimpy Dial-an-Encouraging-Word program, which charges $2 to tape an upbeat five-second message that will be piped into the Vikes' locker room before the game.

DECEMBER 31
The year 2002 is minutes away. I am watching the celebration in Times Square and the time has come for New Year's resolutions. O.K.: I resolve to study my Video Viking Playbook every night to speed up my Common Huddle play-calling reaction time. I resolve to use Leather Lung no more than once a game. I resolve to cut back on my $1 long-shot Tele-Tout bets with Robo-Bookie from one a day to one a week, and I resolve not to watch anymore CIPBM. On second thought, no I don't. Happy New Year!