Virtual Baseball: Cold, Yes; Funky, No: Medina So Much Plankton to Rays. New Minor League Franchises Announced.

The Yankees threw yet another promising young pitcher into the breech tonight, in a desperate attempt to stop the team's repeated thrashing at the hands of the Tampa Bay Rays.  Instead, right-hander Luis "Mecca" Medina struggled with his control through four innings of grueling baseball, walking six Rays, hitting five more, and unleashing four wild pitches, in the Yanks' grisly, 13-6 loss to Tampa Bay.

The hard-throwing Medina had a minor-league lifetime ERA of 5.51 going into this season and a record of 4-13, but was still considered a top prospect thanks to a fastball that frequently reaches 100.  Promoted to Trenton this year, Medina so far has compiled a record of 0-2 with a 6.25 ERA, but is .still considered a top prospect thanks to a fastball that frequently reaches 100.

Called "the Evil Empire's secret Death Star weapon" by some because of his frightening speed, and by others because of his tendency to come completely apart when faced with even the most pathetic opposition, Medina had Tampa Bay hitters constantly diving for cover before trotting to first.

"Well, he had a bad night tonight.  But you know, this kids is still a top prospect because he has a fastball that frequently reaches 100," manager Ma Boone said on being awakened after the game.

The only Yankees highlights were home runs by Gio Urshela and Luke Voit, in a contest that took an unmanageable 6 hours and 37 minutes.

In other local baseball news, the locations and names for the new, expanded minor leagues were announced for both New York teams.

Besides the existing Brooklyn Cyclones and Binghamton Rumble Ponies, the Mets' new franchises will be the Ronkonkoma Komets, the Montauk Roughriders, the Yonkers Bank Failures, the Mastic Shirley Temples (a narrow winner over "Mastodons"), the Bridgeport Barnums, and the Yaphank Yips, all of which will field farm teams at one level or another, along with instructional teams in Florida and the Dominican Republic.

The Yankees will revive their old Newark Bears franchise, along with the new Paterson Assassins (named for that city's longtime celebration of the anarchist who shot the King of Italy), the Hackensack Sack-and-Hacks, the Hoboken Hoboes (almost beaten out by "Hetties" for longtime Hoboken resident Hettie Green, the notorious "Witch of Wall Street"), the Union City Blues, and the Montclair Murder Hornets.

The most extended controversy concerned a new name for the Yanks' Staten Island franchise, after the team refused to countenance the much-loved "Pizza Rats."

Fans suggested the Stalagmites, the Stalagtites, the Stalag 13s, the Stassens, the Stakhanovites, the Stagnant Pools, the Hospital Burners (for the heroic burning of a hospital filled with quarantined immigrants by a Staten Island mob in the 1850s), the Traitors (for the local militia unit that heroically went over to the British on their arrival in 1776), and the St. George Dragons.

In the end, though, the selection was "the Staten Island Flying Scots," to honor the borough's greatest ballplayer, and to get up the nose of the Dodger-loving Wilpons.

Listening to Commissioner Rob Manfred read out the list of new teams, Yankees GM Brian Cashman reportedly became agitated, and was heard to breathe out through his Eagle Protection Helmet, "This shall not be!" though others thought he might have actually said, "I really must pee!"