“Boys, it’s great to be back.  Too bad it’s off season.  I haven’t been anywhere since 1948, and I’m ready to play.”

“Babe, have you had time to read Jose Canseco’s book ‘Juiced’ that says eighty percent of major league baseball players used steroids?” a reporter asked.

“Just finished it.”

“Do you consider the new home run records tainted?” said another reporter.

“Honey, don’t cuss like that.  And what’re you doing in the locker room?”

“It’s common now, Babe,” she said.

“In my day you wouldn’t have come any place but my hotel suite.”

“Just answer the question.  Do you or do you not think the new home run records are legitimate?”

“No ma’am.  All home run records but mine are phony.”

“So you think Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds really did use steroids?” asked a male reporter.

“Of course.  They didn’t get all that muscle drinking whiskey and smoking cigars.”

“Babe, today’s players lift weights year round and go easy on the booze,” said another male reporter.  “Many don’t drink at all.  And almost no one smokes.”

“They’re a bunch of old ladies.”

“Babe, you died at age fifty-three of throat cancer,” said the female reporter.  “Won’t you admit smoking’s bad?”

“Let’s talk baseball.”

“Okay,” she said.  “How can you criticize modern players for getting bigger when you also got a lot bigger?”

“Don’t laugh, boys.  This belly’s natural.”

“What do you think of Canseco?” she asked.

“It’s painful thinking about him injecting steroids into McGwire’s fanny.  But they weren’t the first.  My manager, Miller Huggins, often did the same to Lou Gehrig.  You don’t think he could’ve played in 2,130 consecutive games any other way, do you?”

“Maybe you’re just jealous of Gehrig,” said a male reporter.

“What for?  I was the star.  Who talks about Gehrig?”

“Lots of people,” he said.  “In 1927, the year you hit 60 homers, Lou won the American League MVP.  We know you guys didn’t speak to each other for years.”

“Not after I saw what he and Huggins were up to.”

“Roger Maris was certainly clean,” said a male reporter.

“Not a chance.  Maris had to have help to hit sixty-one home runs in 1961.  He never had forty before or after that.”

“Hank Aaron didn’t take steroids,” the lady stated.

“He sure did.  Otherwise, he wouldn’t have hit seven hundred fifty-five homers – forty-one more than yours truly.”

“There’s absolutely no evidence Aaron ever used performance enhancing drugs,” she said.

“Prove it.  And look at Bonds.  When he was thirty-seven he hit seventy-three homers, but hadn’t come within twenty-five of that when he was young.”

“You jumped from twenty-nine homers one year to fifty-four the next season.” the lady said.

“That was early in my career.”

“It’s still pretty damn suspicious.”

“You saying I took steroids?”

“Maybe Gehrig injected them into your fat fanny,” she said.

“Let me guarantee all of you – if I’d taken steroids and lifted weights, I would’ve hit at least 200 more homers and no one would’ve ever come close.”

“Yeah…Damn right…Get ‘em, Babe…”

“I’m definitely coming back.”

“Babe, please, a couple more things,” said the female reporter.  “What do you think about McGwire’s seventieth home run ball selling for three million dollars?”

“In 1998, my eightieth home run ball would’ve gone for ten million.”

“And what about rumors you had some black ancestors, and maybe that’s part of why you were so dominant and the only guy in major league history to be a star pitcher and hitter?”

“Don’t be smart-alecky.  Just get me Jose on the phone.”