Virtual Baseball: Clarke Kent? No, Super Schmidt! Yanks' Rookie Faster Than a Speeding Bullet Against Angels! Giancarlo Bunts!!!

The Yankees' surprising virtual starter this year, Clarke Lewis Schmidt cut through the Los Angeles Anaheims of Orangina tonight like a chain saw through avocado, striking out 10, as the Yanks just nudged the Angelinos, 3-2.

Schmidt also hit upon a novel means of negating Mike Trout, by walking him and letting the rest of L.A.'s lachrymose lineup flail ineffectually at his offerings.

Still, the score was still tied, 2-2, in the bottom of the seventh, when Giancarlo Stanton stepped to the plate with Aaron Hicks on third base—and bunted successfully through the cleared-out, right side of the infield.  The play shocked the Yankee Stadium crowd into silence at first, as had an earlier Stanton single that seemed to have been purposely hit to the opposite field.

After a great stillness greeted his bunt hit, a single voice cried out from the stands, "Genius!"  Similar chants, including "Bravo!", "Bellissimo!" and "Well played, old man!" soon resounded through the Stadium, while the women waved adoring handkerchiefs, and men threw their hats in the air.

Commissioner Rob Manfredmann announced afterwards that Stanton would have to face the standard fine for bunting in major-league baseball, while Yankees general manager Brian Cashman only growled menacingly.

But Stanton's bunt proved key, as Yankees reliever Aroldis "Cool Hand" Chapman, with his strategically frozen fingers, quickly put the game away.  Home runs by Clint Frazier and Hicks had provided the other two runs for New York.

"Bunting is a serious violation of MLB standards, as is hitting to the opposite field," Commissioner Manfredmann reiterated after the game.  "Such strategies threaten our best efforts to make the game a purely statistical simulacrum that is as real in a computer as it is on the field."

Asked for a reaction, Stanton merely shook his head, and replied, "You can't stop us on the road to freedom.  You can't stop us cause our eyes can see."

At the next locker, the other Yankee "Twin Tower," Aaron Judge, quickly agreed:  "Men with insight. Men in granite."

"Knights in armor," added Aaron Hicks, "bent on chivalry."

All agreed that Mike Trout was an Angel of the first degree.