MLB Preview 2307: Fuel Pods Think They've Melted Away Altitude Problem

MOON BASE FOXTROT- After years of failed experimentation trying to play in their gravity challenged environment, the Woolworth's Fuel Pods at Moon Base Foxtrot are starting 2307 with a new name and a new hope that they've found a cost effective way of keeping scoring down while playing on the lunar surface. The hot secret? Beneath Kotex Stadium they've installed a foundry, wherein they dip each game ball in a vat of molten lead and store it for at least a week at 70 degrees Farenheit.

"We just want to get the baseballs to meet Rawlins guidelines for weight, and the lead coating seems to do the trick," Fuel Pods General Manager Kat O'Donnell says.

"Not every market up here can afford a pressurized PleasureDome like they've built for the teams at Moon Base Bravo, or Moon Base Bravo at Moon Base Charlie. We just don't have the fan-base, yet," she adds.

The foundry follows several attempts at dealing with the out of sight run scoring that comes with the high altitude, low gravity environment, and the change in personnel on the team reflects that. Gone is ace pitcher Pierre Clouseau, last of the gyro-ballers that O'Donnell tried to collect in her last experiment before the foundry. He was traded in the offseason to the Subsea Station-Manhattan Yankees for a pair of prospects and starting catcher, Alec Baldwin X.

"It was a good baseball deal," O'Donnell says, "And Baldwin X gives the club a dimension it didn't have before with his mutant ability to manipulate metals.

"Obviously Clouseau and the rest (of the gyro-pitchers) didn't work out, but at least we were able to get the rule clarification in regards  to balls that leave the stadium and then re-enter after orbit."

When asked about the team's name change from the Dinty Moore Beef Stew Reduced Calories, O'Donnell was equally upbeat.

"Woolworth's stepped up to the plate with a good offer, what can I say? And obviously their comeback story, after being left for dead for over a century, is one we ourselves would like to emulate -the armed conflict with Google notwithstanding, of course," she said.

While O'Donnell paints a rosy picture of the team's chances this year, others are less positive. Cindy Silver Sheehan, the CEO of Baseball Prospectus Industries, the media and defense conglomerate, had this to say:

"PECOTA-DB doesn't agree with Ms. O'Donnell's assessment, and in fact, sees pain and destruction in the future of the Fuel Pods."

PECOTA-DB (Player Empirical Comarison and Optimization Test Algorithm -with Destructo Beam) is BPI's most well known forecasting tool, with a 98.7% accuracy level last season.

"As soon as we take care of the remnants of this band of small ball rebels in the Asteroid Belt, we'll turn our attention to the matter more completely," she added ominously.