"The horror! The horror!"

 

"Goooood morrrrrnnnnninnnng, Vietnam!

"Colonel Kurtz, your favorite pirate radio disc jockey here, on WHOD, Heart of Darkness Radio, nestled deep in the highlands of Indochina with my engineer sidekick, Monty Montagnard, who worships me...like a god.

"Don't you, Monty?"

(Sound of a beeping clown horn, followed by a raspberry.)

"Geez, Monty, that didn't sound too worshipful! Okay, cats and kittens, time to get down to business and our weekly stare into...the Heart of Darkness!

"This week's glimpse into the abyss: what can the Yankees do about Giancarlo Stanton???

"You and me and Ho-Ho-Ho Chi Minh have all heard the calls to trade him. Sounds good, right, Monty?"

(Long trombone sound, then a tired deflating.) 

"Whaaattt?  Why not?

"Here to tell us about that is retired Special Operations head turned MLB gameday analyst, Gen. R. Corman. Gen. Corman, how's it hangin'?"

"Why just fine, Colonel, just fine! I was talking to Flynn the other day, and the coup is comin' right along—Oh! but you're talking' about the other thing!"

"Oh, Gen. Corman, you rascal!"

(Clown horn beeps.)

 Any-hoo—Giancarlo Stanton: whattaya do?

"Well, Colonel, we have plotted this out strategically at MLBCentCom, and your options come down to this:

"Sure, a truly bold and savvy general manager could decide to cut his losses now, offer to pay 90-100 percent of Stanton's salary, and try to deal him to another team for a carefully selected package of prospects."

"Sounds like the best idea since I went up the river!"

"We have gamed this out, Colonel. But we concluded that there are three major reasons this will not work."

(Sad trombone sound.)

"Always with the three major reasons! You brass! Go ahead, lay 'em on me, General!"

"One, such a trade would require the approval of Giancarlo himself, something that is highly unlikely. Two, pulling off such a trade would require a 'greater fool' than Brian Cashman to be general manager of that other team. That is physically impossible. When it comes to baseball, there is no greater fool than Brian Cashman.

"And three, Yankees CompuBot owner HAL "3000" Steinbrenner would never countenance paying $32 million a year for Stanton to play for another team. No matter what he received in return, or how much damage Giancarlo were to do to that other team."

(Canned booing sound.)

"That's certainly depressing, General. So what do the Yankees do with a problem like Giancarlo? Does he just keep taking up 10-15 percent of the payroll for the next five years, while producing less and less?"

"What I would recommend is to send Capt. Willard up the Harlem River to terminate Mr. Stanton."

"Terminate?"

"Terminate with extreme prejudice."

"Whhhoaaa, General! We don't do that kind of thing anymore! At least not in MLB—not since they set General Eckert up with that girl in the motel room, anyway!"

"All right, you want another, civilian solution, Colonel? Play him 'til he breaks."

"What's that now?"

"Play Giancarlo Stanton until he breaks. Everyday, from the moment he steps off the DL list. Play him in the field. Play him every game and every inning. No pinch-runners, no DH'ing. No days off. I guarantee you, he will break down. Then HAL can collect his insurance money from Lloyd's of London, and everything will be hunky-dory."

"Wow, now there's a strategy! Do you really think Brian Cashman is a general manager capable of that?"

"Cashman! He's not a general manager. He's an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks to collect a bill!"

(Doors music swells. "This is the end/ My only friend/ The End...")