Disease Hoping To Be Named After Ballplayer

BRANDON INGE—A thus-far undiscovered hantavirus inhabiting Tigers third baseman Brandon Inge confessed Tuesday that it would love to seriously afflict and be named after a “real-life baseball player.” “I imagine I’ll be given an uninspiring medical classification, like hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, but I would love to be commonly known as Joe Mauer’s disease,” the virus said while increasing Inge’s vascular permeability in order to bring about pulmonary edema and simultaneously disrupt the player’s renal system. “Hopefully I don’t get discovered in this guy before I get a chance to infect someone really good, like Justin Verlander. My dream is to cause massive splenomegaly and eventually tachycardia in Albert Pujols, but I don’t even know if that’s possible for a virus like me, so for now that’s all it is—a dream.” The virus went on to idly inhibit B cells in the shape of Derek Jeter.