Now Here’s a First-Strike-Out Capability

After yet another failed attempt to get an interceptor rocket to successfully take out an oncoming nuclear missile over the Pacific, the Pentagon has scrapped its $60-billion missile defense plan in favor of a new system based not on supercomputers but on the most powerful computer ever built: the human brain.

The plan is the brainchild of Lockheed Martin rocket scientist Amos “Stinky� McFarland. He came up with it not in the lab but at a New York Yankees game.

“I was there in the cheap seats with my kids one night, swilling beer and thinking about national missile defense, when all of a sudden the Orioles batter with a 3-and-2 count hits a long, long drive to the outfield. Next thing I know, [Yankees outfielder] Bernie Williams is racing like crazy toward the fence, watching the ball back over his shoulder and everything as he runs. He gets to the wall, leaps up into the air, grabs that little tiny baseball and bammo, the inning’s over! And I say to myself, ‘Damn, we just spent $100 million of Uncle Sam’s money to test our system, and we still can’t catch up to anything!’ And that’s when I got to thinking . . .�

That’s when McFarland went to his boss, who went to his boss, who went to Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen. The new plan: Deploy a screen of 200 to 300 anti-missile missiles around the U.S. and its allies, each with a Major League outfielder strapped inside it.

Cohen was high on the idea from the start. “I know the public thinks that these baseball players are overpaid. But when you look at the cost of what we’ve been trying so far, and the poor performance we’ve been getting from it all, I’d say that the U.S. taxpayer would be getting a bargain by using the ballplayers, even at those inflated salaries.� Cohen’s thoughts were echoed by presidential candidate George W. Bush, himself once part-owner of a Major League team.

“As a former Major League owner,� Bush said, “and an American, I love the idea. I’ve wanted to send some of these guys into space for a long time, especially during contract negotiations. I say send ‘em up and let ‘em defend their country, just like I defended Texas during the Vietnam War.�

The exact method by which the new missiles would intercept their target is top secret, but sources have suggested an ingenious steering mechanism: When the oncoming nuclear missile gets close enough for the outfielder to see it, he would start spitting tobacco juice onto a special touch-screen computer display in the direction he wants his interceptor to go. This would reportedly tell the missile’s rockets to head for the perfect intercept point, at which time the explosive-packed interceptor would collide with the ICBM and destroy it.

One possible minor problem with the plan is the fact that the outfielder would get blown to smithereens upon contact.

Said Secretary Cohen when asked about this point: “It is, of course, regrettable that we have to lose an outfielder for each take-out. But they’ll just have to think of it as sliding into second base for the team--in a much bigger way. Besides, we have guys living in foxholes eating food that makes rat dung sound tasty who aren’t making one-tenth of what these guys are getting paid.�

The new plan has already drawn the ire of human rights groups. Amnesty International has denounced it as “cruel and unusual punishment� and suggested that Frisbee fetch dogs be used in place of the humans.

This suggestion was immediately pounced upon by the animal rights group PETA, which released a statement saying: “It’s ugly to use man’s best friend to guide weapons of war. They should use only vegetables if they’re going to do this kind of thing, not animals.�

Vegetable rights groups have not yet commented. But at $1.59 a pound for New Jersey tomatoes, vegetables would be a much cheaper alternative than outfielders or purebred dogs and could be counted on to scratch themselves less often.

Another problem: Where to get so many Major League outfielders.

“We’d have to use minor leaguers and Little League kids for practice and training purposes,� rocket scientist McFarland said. “The big guys we’d save for the real deal!�