I blame Bill Veeck 

Posted 2:48 PM by Sean
According to the Kansas City Star, the first two innings of a game on July 16 between the Schaumburg Flyers and the Kansas City T-Bones (Northern League) will be played via Xbox on the ballpark's video screen, with the announcers doing play by play. The teams will then take the field and play innings 3-9.

This almost has to be a joke, doesn't it?

The idea for the promotion came from the 6-year-old niece of Bryan Williams, director of community relations for the T-Bones.
[...]
“Everybody in the world is going to want to do this after us,” Williams said.

How much must it suck to be a Schaumburg Flyer or a Kansas City T-Bone right now? Not only are you playing in the Northern League, you're being told you're essentially replacable by some Doritos-stained doofus at the whim of a six-year-old girl. Suddenly, going into the family business don't look so bad anymore, huh, Jocko?