Tomorrow morning, I’ll be making the 90 minute trek down the turnpike to head to my most favorite place in Pennsylvania: Citizens Bank Park. It will be my second game this season, and my first time seeing Cliff Lee in person. Needless to say, I’m looking forward to some afternoon baseball, as most of us would if it meant not having to sit in an office all day while the more fortunate got to sit in the sun and watch the glory and splendor of American’s Pastime.

Then I saw this:

Huh, I thought. A robot that can throw a baseball? How quaint. Here I thought they called those “pitching machines,” and I used one of those in high school, but whatever. But being the ever curious person that I am, I wanted to know more. I loved robots growing up, and I one day dreamed about having a robot best friend or something.

Needless to say, I got a little more excited. It’d be like a real life Transformer, I thought. Then I tracked down this column, and it was then that I realized just how wrong I was.

They started with a Segway, gave it a robotic arm and added a third wheel. They also gave it a pneumatic cylinder, which delivers a burst of compressed carbon dioxide to power the pitch.

Do you see? It started out as a Segway. You know, those fancy scooters that lazy hipsters cruise around in? Only it added a cannon, an arm, and a third wheel. It evolved. But it only get’s worse.

“The robot’s computer brain can be tweaked to change pitch velocity and trajectory.”

Robot computer brain. It has the capacity for thought.

This is it, kids. The age of the machines is nearly upon us. First, they made that computer that could win at chess. Then there was the one that did really good at “Jeopardy.” If dominating at a game show wasn’t bad enough, they’ve now come for baseball. And it won’t stop there. Soon, they’ll learn to bunt. Then they’ll learn how to change tires. And then what?

Remember that episode of “The Simpons” when the robots at Itchy and Scratchy Land became self aware and took over the park, leaving our heroes in peril? That wasn’t fiction. We’re being warned. Think about it, every movie about robots inevitably takes the route of them growing a soul and deciding they want to enslave the human race. Even the “good” robots – Johnny Five, Bender, that goofy bastard from “Lost in Space” – they all went mad, drunk with robot power.

If you think I’m joking, guess again, chuckles. Remember the “Terminator” movies? They practically wrote the book on the machines taking over. And you know how “judgment day” is the day that the machines become self aware because of an intuitive learning program called SKYNET? Guess what day that goes online? April 19th. Today. Two days after, the attacks start. You say it’s science fiction, I say it’s just the future. After all, fiction only just informs on reality, and not the other way around.

Really, I just want to know why the Phillies hate us so much. I mean, we pack the stadium every night so they can afford the Cliff Lees of the world, and they do this? Oh, you think it’s for our benefit. Hey kids, look at all the science! But really, they are doing little more than ushering in the era of human-robot conflict. This is how it begins.

Anyway, I’ll be at the ballpark for Wednesday’s game. If you’re there, come and say hello. I shouldn’t be too hard to spot, after all, because I’ll be the only guy carrying around a sandwich board with “SHOULD OF SPARED HUMANITY.”

If you all don’t hear from me on Thursday, you can assume that I was one of the first of many casualties in the never ending struggle for mankind against the machines.

Or maybe I just took the day off. Either one.