Russia Has Lost Its Balls.

Funny. I never imagined Russia had any interest in baseball until I visited a Moscow hypermarket near my flat the other day. It soon became clear why.

Everyone, the whole world over, knows what the objects in the above photo are. Baseball bats. Right? Good. Now then...where are those little spherical things that are supposed to go with them?

Let's look to the left. Nope. That's home fitness equipment. (Hmm. I wonder how far a 2 kilo dumbbell will go when whacked with a baseball bat?)

Let's look to the right. Nope. Those are plant pots. Yes. Plant pots. Plenty room for houseplant hardware but not for baseballs it seems.

So you would assume that the balls had been mistakenly placed elsewhere, wouldn't you? Well maybe. Some vodka swizzled high school dropout quietly doing his bit to rebel against corporate greed (Hey! Without him I'd have nothing to write about). But if that were indeed the case then you'd be a better man than me if you managed to find them.

Something tells me though, that there's another explanation, like—the balls aren't anywhere in the store full stop, not even in the store's zip code for that matter, because the point is not to play sport. But then...what exactly are the good citizens of Moscow doing with just baseball bats?

Whatever the populace is doing with them, this chain of large supermarkets obviously supports it by purposely buying and supplying only half the shipment. And the other half? Don't worry, they won't go to waste. They'll get shipped off to whoever dares to drive carelessly anywhere near the guys who buy the bats...because they'll be needing the extra balls.

Baseball
Russia
Bat
Violence
Institutionalized