Futurepedia: Witch-hunting is a Washington, D.C., tradition - SPiN

Congressional sports witch-hunts

No matter what internal or external crises threaten America, its legislators are never too busy to investigate wrongdoing in sports. Furthermore, no alleged wrongdoing in sports is too trivial or inconsequential to prevent politicians from seeking face time from the dominant mass communication disseminators of the day.

2011: In the case dubbed "Spygate 2," Congress investigates whether New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick and his staff used videotaped recordings, newspaper and Internet articles, and accounts of eyewitnesses, to learn about what happened in the NFL games that had been played the preceding weekend. Suspicions were originally aroused when Belichick was reportedly seen using a remote control to flip through various TV channels in an effort "to find out what happened in the afternoon games."

2014: Upon completion of Congressional investigation of the White House T-ball league, it is ruled that the Secret Service is within its rights to ship members of any team that beats the team of the President's son to detention at Guantanamo Bay.

2015: After a vote by university presidents kills a proposal to enact a plus-one playoff system in college football, Congress investigates why NCAA basketball teams are allowed to have a thorough and popular playoff system. Congress eventually orders the annual March basketball tournament to be abolished, and replaced by a bowl system and plus-one format.

2018: In closed-door sessions, Congress holds hearings as to whether Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders or Hooters waitresses give better lap dances. All videotaped evidence on these hearings remains highly classified.

2020: While all the countries of the Earth band together in a desperate attempt to repel an alien invading force, Congress decides to look into if any athletes of the alien species have ever used illegal supplements in their popular sports. Hearing is indefinitely delayed when aliens eliminate Congress with a fearsome death ray.

2026: Congress investigates which celebrities have led the seventh-inning stretch at Wrigley Field by memorizing the lyrics to Take Me Out to the Ball Game; which celebrities insisted on having the lyrics printed out ahead of time to refer to them; and which celebrities were blind stinkin' drunk at the time.

2032: During Senate confirmation hearings to appoint former baseball pitcher Roger Clemens to the U.S. Supreme Court, Democrats bring proceedings to a halt while they investigate allegations that Clemens passed his exams at Harvard Law School in the early 2020s by stealing the signs of his professors.

2033: Congress investigates if bobblehead dolls given out at baseball games of the New Orleans Devil Rays also have powers as voodoo dolls. Hearing is suddenly adjourned on third day when every leader of the hearing grabs their chest and starts screaming as though pins were puncturing their lungs.

2038: In the months leading up to kickoff of World Cup in Dallas and Houston, Congress demands to know why no one is allowed to use their hands in soccer.

2046: Congress rules that the Super Bowl between the Toronto Bills and Phoenix Texans must be removed from record books when it is discovered the mayor of Phoenix bribed the Texans kicker to purposely miss all field goal and extra point attempts. Phoenix mayor had master plan to purposely lose his public relations bet with the mayor of Toronto so that the Canadian city would "win" Phoenix's wager of shipments of nuclear waste. (Toronto mayor had wagered a bucket of hockey pucks and two room-temperature cases of Molson Ice.)

2053: Following investigations that baseball owners abused their monopoly in doling out the latest round of television and hologram contracts, Congress expressly prohibits Major League Baseball from strictly prohibiting anything without its express prior written consent.