U.S. — In a blow to America's favorite pastime, Vivek Ramaswamy has officially announced that the Department Of Government Efficiency will be replacing baseball with cricket.
All baseball bats in America will be confiscated and replaced with absurdly over-sized paddles, and baseball fields will have a few sticks jammed into the ground to convert them into cricket fields.
Though many Americans expressed resistance to the idea, Ramaswamy assured the nation it would come to love cricket once it understood the rules. "It's really quite simple," explained Ramaswamy. "You just throw the whicky-whopper at the wicket wands, aiming a beamer at the block hole, and the walloper hits the boot hill and runs the bowling box for half a point if no one donkey drops the nibble. Of course, it's an extra three fourths of a point if the slingy bowls a paddle scoop, and the game keeps going until a nipbacker nets a gully grubber."
"We should have seen this coming," sighed baseball fan Ray Barnham. "First, they convert all the gas stations in the country to 7-11's, and now this. Apparently, they're making all the MLB teams play cricket and will rename the Dodgers the 'Sticky Wickets.' I guess that's one silver lining."
At publishing time, the nation was further disappointed to learn that hot dogs were also going to be replaced with chicken tikka masala on a bun.
Citing concerns about stiff competition from Amazon and an impossible-to-please Gen Z, Santa has announced he's hanging up the hat for good.
