MLB Attempts To Increase Fan Engagement By Providing Ball With Emotional Backstory

NEW YORK—In an effort to deepen viewer connection to the on-field product, Major League Baseball officials announced Tuesday a new fan-engagement initiative in which every ball introduced into play would be accompanied by a rich emotional backstory explaining its personal stakes, motivations, and tragic past. “We believe fans will be far more invested in a 96-mph fastball fouled into the dirt if they know the ball left behind a sick wife and five children in his home country, and that being hit over the left-field wall is his only chance to earn enough money to bring them to America,” said MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, adding that whenever an umpire removed a ball from his pouch, that ball’s origin story would immediately appear on the stadium jumbotron and be accompanied by a swelling orchestral score. “This isn’t just a ball. This is Ball 4839-B, a proud but frightened immigrant from the war-torn moon of Galagulon whose stitches are not decorative, but the literal sutures holding his skull together after a brutal assault by the volleyball supremacists who rule his planet. When Aaron Judge steps into the box, fans won’t just be watching a five-ounce sphere of cowhide and cork. They’ll be watching a father risk everything for one chance to become more than the slum he was born into.” Reviews of the new initiative have been mixed so far, with fans at a recent Dodgers game growing visibly distraught when a ball they were told had overcome brain cancer was unceremoniously fouled out of play before he ever got the chance to make peace with his estranged mother.

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