Following yesterday’s account in the NY Times of spoiled teens tuning out the NBA Finals in favor of EA Sports’ “NBA Live” comes the following item from the Kansas City Star’s David Hayes.

The first two innings of the July 16th game between the Kansas City T-Bones and the Schaumburg Flyers will be played virtually.

Equipped with Microsoft Xbox game controllers instead of baseball gloves and bats, two video gamers will climb into recliner chairs around home plate at CommunityAmerica Ballpark and slug it out on the park™s 16- by 24-foot video screen.


(the kid on the right just figured out the code that enables Randy Johnson to actually pitch effectively against the Devil Rays)

Their scores from playing two innings of MVP Baseball 2005 on an Xbox will stand when the T-Bones and Flyers take the field to finish the last seven innings of the game.

Mike Stone, commissioner of the minor-league baseball Northern League, said the idea œbrings new meaning to the term ˜fan involvement.™‚

The idea for the promotion came from the 6-year-old niece of Bryan Williams, director of community relations for the T-Bones.

œIt was a fun way to get my niece involved in things I do every day, Williams said. œThen it just grew and grew and took off.

If nothing else, I do like the idea of blaming terrible ideas on the executives’ children and/or younger relatives. Had Jim Duquette looked around his family tree a bit harder, he might’ve found someone else to take the heat for the Scott Kazmir trade.