Sunday, July 29, 2007

With Bonds on the Precipice of History, Dodgers Re-Sign Chan Ho Park for Homestand

With Giant slugger Barry Bonds one swing away from tying the all-time MLB home run record, and the Giants rolling into town Tuesday for a three-game series at Dodger Stadium, Dodger GM Ned Colletti ran out to beat the trade deadline and re-sign former Dodger Chan Ho Park. Park holds the distinction of being in a select group of five players who have given up the most total home runs (8) to Bonds along his 754-HR journey-turned-dirge.

"Bringing Chan Ho back to Dodger Stadium to serve up a meatball to Bonds guarantees that the record will be set in Los Angeles," said Colletti, still beaming over the brilliance of the trade. "Greg Maddux, Curt Schilling, and John Smoltz weren't available, and Terry Mulholland was unable to be located, so Chan Ho made the most sense for us to sign."

Park pitched for the Dodgers from 1994-2001 and amassed a record of 80-54. Since being signed by the Rangers in 2002, he has also pitched for the Padres and Mets, adding 33 more wins and 34 more losses to his career totals.

Park gave up HR #350 to Bonds in 1997, and teammates mentioned that he lamented also giving up #501 in April 2001 having been beaten to the #500 milestone one day earlier by Terry Adams. Park also gave up two home runs to Bonds in one game in October 2001.

Park, who was let go by the Mets on June 4, is 0-1 in one appearance, in which he gave up 7 ER in four innings, including two home runs. "This is exactly the kind of BP pitching that we are looking to see in our home series against the Giants," Colletti said.

The Mets were responsible for the remainder of his $600K salary until the Dodgers agreed to match the amount in full for the honor of bringing Park back to Los Angeles. "I figure I can make that $600K back over this homestand alone," said Dodger owner and parking guru Frank McCourt, "by jacking up parking fees to $25 for the series. 50,000 fans for each of three games assumes 25K cars per game, totaling 75K cars. At an extra $10 per car, I've got enough to cover Chan Ho's full salary--and that's not even accounting for the increased beer prices for this homestand." McCourt then erupted into a maniacal "Bwah ha ha ha ha!" laugh and walked away rubbing the skin of his palms together.

Dodger pitching coach Rick Honeycutt was unavailable for comment as he was getting inebriated after hearing news of the move. Grady Little was rumored to be salivating over the prospect of leaving Park in at least one game for too long, but also could not be reached for comment.

For the record, this post is completely concocted. I don't think SoSG has gotten to the point where it is looked to for breaking news, but just in case, we wanted to make it clear that this report isn't true. Yet.

4 comments:

Scott Jeffries said...

worthy of the Onion!

Orel said...

The beauty of this article is that nobody would be shocked if this actually happened. Bravo, Sax!

Eric Karros said...

Great piece

Alex Cora said...

Ha! Fell out of my seat when I read this!