Picture a Simpsons episode where Montgomery Burns is talking to Smithers:
(I wrote this today - its not an actual episode of The Simpsons.)
Burns: "Smithers, the people have stopped watching. What has caused such a catastrophe."
Smithers: "Sir people were offended by the strike last season and think its ridiculous that players and/or teams want more money."
Burns: "What caused these people to have such a thought?"
Smithers: "Believe it or not sir, I think they actually woke up."
Burns: "Nonsense! We can put them back to sleep. What is it that people like about this silly game in the first place?"
Smithers: "They seem to really like home runs sir."
Burns: "Home runs eh?"
Smithers: "Yes sir. Homeruns."
Burns: "If its homeruns they want ..... lets give them the home runs."
Smithers: "Well, sir its not that easy. A major league pitcher throws about 98 miles per hour. And they throw curve balls and sliders."
Burns: "Well we'll just instruct them to throw it directly over the plate if they want to keep their jobs."
Smithers: "But even if they did that, it still is hard to hit the ball far enough for a homerun. The average left field fence is about 400 feet."
Burns: "Can't we get Arnold Shwartzenneger to play baseball?"
Smithers: "No sir. Arnold Shwartzenegger is a body builder, not a baseball player."
Burns: "I saw that man in Twins lift a car!" How did that man get so strong!"
Smithers: "He had a medically monitored and controlled usage of steroids sir."
Burns: "Then get steroids for the players Smithers!"
Smithers: "You can't really do that sir. Steroids are considered by people to be unethical."
Burns: "But I thought you said they like homeruns!"
Smithers: "Well they do sir, but they like to think the players naturally hit the ball out of the park."
Burns: "Bah, they also like to think their politicians are not crooked and just and ethical."
Smithers: "Sir, Steroids are in some ways, illegal."
Burns: "Then make sure that every player publicly has some sort of injury that requries steroids so that we can inject everyone with steroids and it'll be completely clinical and ethical.
Smithers: "Brilliant sir."
Burns: "Yessssss."
Smithers: "What if one of the players writes a book about what we did."
Burns: "We'll publicly make him out to appear as a kook."
Smithers: "What if people believe him."
Burns: "We'll deny it to the Congress."
Smithers: "What if it doesn't just go away after that?"
Burns: "We'll use it to promote baseball. That baseball is cleaning up its image."
Smithers: "How can you do that?"
Burns: "By making examples out of the highest paid, highest profile players."
Smithers: "But if they're in on the whole thing with us how can they keep a straight face."
Burns: "Very simple Smithers. All they have to do is apologize and ask for redemption. People
buy that everytime. Smithers you see, the people actually don't care. If we can give them enough homeruns and excitement they'll forget all about whatever it is they're mad about. And if we get the good players on every team to do it, no fan would want their best player on their team suspended. They just want the best player on the other team to be suspended. The best part of this entire fiasco will be the news will talk about Major League Baseball and put photographs of our top athletes in the news every single night, and they'll have discussions about it, and out of curiousity people will begin to watch our boring games because they've grown attached to names like Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Alex Rodriguez,. This will help build the MLB brand in such a new way. Into the living rooms of every household will see "A-Rod". And they can come up with cute names to make themselves feel superior like "A-Roid" and they'll never come to conclusion that A-Roid still earns 250 billion dollars and they're still sitting on their couch because they'll feel good to be able to make fun of him - and all that is build into his salary."
Smithers: "Isn't that un-ethical sir?"
Burns: "Without Steroids there is no more baseball. You said it yourself. The fans are fed up.
They want homeruns."
Smithers: "But sir you missed the part that I said people want to believe it is happening naturally-"
Burns: "They want their homeruns ..... they got their homeruns. These people are never satisfied."
Smithers: "Because they don't think it happened naturally."
Burns: "What does it matter? They want homeruns! We gave them homeruns."
Smithers: "Yeah but we had the guys lie to congress."
Burns: "So then take sides with the Canseco fellow. We always make sure to own both sides of the debate."
Smithers: "But sir, we told the people that Canseco was a kook."
Burns: "Throw A-Rod, Barry, and Mark out to dry. Strip them of their records. Give it back to that previous fellow, the Hammer."
Smithers: "Don't you think its sort of selling these guys out when these guys helped save our sport?"
Burns: "It saved the sport. They did their job. If they didnt take the roids no one would watch baseball. We would've had to cut everyone's salaries. They wouldn't have been able to collect big paychecks for the past 10 years. It's either the records or the money and im sure they'll take the money and not care about any stupid records."
Smithers: "So Hank Aaron is the once again homerun king? What about all of the statistics the guys had accumulated before they used performance enhancers?"
Burns: "We can create a Mutant League stat book."
