Dodger Stadium. Special to Spoof. You probably missed it if you watched last month's World Series. On several occasions, the first base umpire went to the bag with an electronic device, sweeping it over and around the bag repeatedly. It was all done rather surreptitiously, so it didn't get TV time or even radio mention.
It was a serious, though unconventional, and rarely-used response to charges that BoSox player, Mitch Moreland, and his replacements, were resorting to illegal ploys to catch a runner off the bag. The ploy had actually been used by the Cucamonga Quakes during their regular season, and it was feared the illegal and unsportsmanlike tactic had entered the majors when the BoSox picked off so many runners at first.
When the umpire was asked by a Spoof reporter what was up, the answer was simple. "At Cucamonga, they electrified the bag so that the first baseman could shock the runner into taking his foot off the bag and pick him off. We wrongly thought the Sox might also be ... energizing their base."
