John Kass' article in the Trib today playfully blends two of the more ridiculously overblown non-baseball stories in baseball this week: Dusty Baker's comments on skin color and heat and Randall Simon's sausage wearing mascot whacking.

I wanted to know if the Wrigley Field Skin Theory--that skin color determines the ability to best withstand summer heat--also applies to ballpark sausages and mascots in Milwaukee.

Theoretically, could dark-skinned sausages take the heat in Milwaukee as well as their lighter-skinned brother sausages?

Hooray for a columnist who has a sense of humor about sports and the silly stories athletes create.

Mr. Serious award goes to Rick Schlesinger, the Brewers vice president of business operations for remarking on the sausage incident:

This is one of the most outrageous things I've ever seen inside a ballpark or outside a ballpark.

Lighten up, Rick, it was obviously a playful tap. I think the yahoos at Comiskey last year who decided to attack Royal's coach Tom Gamboa or the cherry bomb incident at the A's game were a little more outrageous than Simon's joking half-swing.