Phillies abandon paper as a medium

The Phillies' offseason is full of possibilities. Let's check in and see how things are going!

It seems everything is going digital these days,

Holy shit! The Phillies are converting to a completely animatronic infield? That's so much worse than I imagined. I just figured they would frame Ryan Howard for PED use and then abandon him.

It makes total sense. Who can look at the Phillies today and not just see warring factions of rogue animatronic baseball players, tearing through humanity like wet paper; the echoes of explosions and screams coming from a bleak, barren future, until only the dull hum of murderously efficient mechanics is left.

Sure, it'll seem quaint and folksy when the robot infield gathers to sing happy birthday with a banjo, and the children clap and the adults all chuckle and exchange glances because the Jimmy Rollins robot's eye popped out of its socket and is hanging there by a coil, wiggling with every lyric.

And maybe people won't care when it takes too long for one of them to detect an incoming grounder, far too late to stop it, and then bowing its head shamefully as the spotlight fades.

How is this gonna work? Present to me a future in which they don't inevitably turn on the humans who created them?

This is it, isn't it? John S. Middleton, the richest man in the country, can no longer pretend this baseball team is a good investment as the old boys who control it drive it into the sun. He is finally channeling his millions of funds into something worthwhile: the end of civilization. God, I can hear the "I always knew it would start in Philly!" jokes already. GET SOME NEW MATERIAL, ASS CLOWNS.

and Phillies tickets are no exception.

"The Phillies are nudging their 17,500 season ticket holders to renew with e-tickets next year, as opposed to a delivery of paper tickets.

"Which means they just have access to their tickets sooner," says John Weber, Vice President, Ticket Sales and Operations for the Phillies. "They'll be able to email then to their co-workers, to friends, and printthem out themselves if they so choose."

Weber says in two or three years, the team will migrate nearly all tickets to a digital form.

/hits inhaler deeply

Okay. Okay. It's just the tickets.

/Places rusty shotgun back under floor boards.

I have different crazy problems now.

Is this a sign the Phillies don't plan to have any games worthy of keeping the ticket stub? You can't open a memory box and show your grand children a digital ticket. You can't find internet footprints from a purchase of a day at the ball yard with gramps while rifling through his belongings because you weren't in the will.

What sort of message is this? I mean it's better than that apocalypse from before but still.