The Bugs Are Coming for MLB Umpire Brains

This, I don’t mind telling you, is one of my all-time nightmares, right next to being buried alive, and hearing the phrase “Daddy, this is my fiancé Sully, he’s from WOOSTAH.” During the ninth inning at Chicago’s ridiculously named ballpark, umpire Bruce Dreckman trotted off the field as Johnathan Holder attempted to finish off a Yankees win.

It was unclear what was going on, but then we saw Yankees trainer Steve Donahue digging around in Dreckman’s ear and our worst fears were confirmed: the bugs are coming for our brains.

After Donahue’s swabs didn’t seem to get the job done, Dreckman just got wrist-deep in his own ear canal to fish out a disconcertingly large insect—Moth? Dragonfly? Harbinger of Hell on Earth?—and calmly handed it back over to the trainer because, I dunno, I guess discarding with brain-burrowing insects falls under his job description. It does now, anyway. As Dreckman returned to the field, all he could muster was “fuckin’ weird.”

As for the bug, it fluttered its wings while still in the grasp of Donahue’s tweezers before finally it broke free and disappeared. The alarming thing is we don’t know where it went, but we do know what it craves. The warm, dark solitude of the human cavity.

The Yankees beat the White Sox, 7-3.