Reading · The Onion: 20 Years Later

Welcome to The Onion’s Website: 20 Years Later, a weekly review of what The Onion published online that wasn’t in the print issue. This week, we’re looking at July 19 to 25, 2006.

This is The Onion’s 1st official week back from vacation, during which it celebrated 10 years of having a website and introduced a brand-new print look.

Thanks for being here! I’m excited to share these jokes with you, many of which you can’t find online today.

New here? Sign up to revisit The Onion’s past with me!

And if you really like what I’m doing, buy me a coffee or upgrade your subscription to support this work.

The Onion created its website in May 1996 to share the print newspaper’s jokes. Beginning Aug. 31, 2005, they added online-only features.

I’ve linked to existing URLs and/or the Internet Archive, depending on what’s available.

I couldn’t get a screenshot of The Onion’s homepage from this time period. So what you’re seeing is the Volume 42, Issue 29 page, which contains many of the jokes we’ll discuss today.

Mid-July is baseball’s time to shine, especially 20 years ago. The other major U.S. sports are dormant, most of the golf and tennis majors have been played, and NASCAR and the WNBA don’t distract from a daily slate of baseball games.

“PNC Park Threatens To Leave Pittsburgh Unless Better Team Is Built” satirizes the typical article about a professional sports team threatening to leave unless the government pays for a new stadium — except in this case, it’s the stadium threatening to leave the team.

The joke is that PNC Park is a beautiful ballpark that typically outshines its tenants. The ballpark reveals that its predecessor, Three Rivers Stadium, “which imploded soon afterward, as you know,”1 warned against taking the Pirates job.

The even better joke in 2026 is the hapless New York Mets, with owner Fred Wilpon bragging about his top stars:

“The New York Mets have all the necessary components in place to fulfill PNC Park’s needs,” Wilpon said. “We have a gleaming new shortstop in Jose Reyes. We have a visually stunning, jaw-dropping player in Carlos Beltran. And the infrastructure of our minor-league system is designed to ensure that PNC Park will be inhabited by great ballplayers for years to come.”
“Also, PNC Park has already established a good rapport and budding friendship with this year’s Home Run Derby runner-up David Wright—the bedrock of our team’s stability,” Wilpon added.

David Wright is arguably the Mets’ greatest position player ever, Reyes had a very solid career, and Beltran is a Hall of Fame cheater. Still, this Mets trio only made one playoff appearance — in 2006.

Also, Wilpon would soon be revealed as Bernie Madoff’s biggest mark.

Other baseball jokes include:

A satirical graphic titled "This Week in Sports History" featuring a vintage Topps baseball card of Montreal Expos player Andre Dawson alongside a short joke blurb. Full text: July 19, 1986: After falling behind 0 and 2, Expos slugger Andre Dawson uses the art of reason to even the count once again. 7/20/06 6:55 AM

“This Week in Sports History” jokes are no longer online.

“Jose Canseco Names 10,000 Baseball Players”: The retired slugger and steroids pioneer did a lot of snitching in the 2000s, including comments on “60 Minutes” that prompted this joke.2
“Brett Myers Atones For Punching Wife With Solid Seven-Inning Outing”: The Onion accurately describes Myers’ July 16 start and kind of predicts the future, as his wife later refused to press charges.
“Selig: Next All-Star Game To Determine U.S. Foreign Policy”: After the embarrassing 2002 All-Star Game tie, MLB decided that the game would determine which league had home field in the World Series.
The Onion ups the ante:

“Since ’This Time It Counts’ didn’t resonate with the fans, we’re hoping that ’All-Star Game 2007: The Fate Of The Free World Hangs In The Balance’ will build more excitement.”

Non-baseball sports jokes include:

“Barbaro’s Doctors: ‘A Horse This Good You Don’t Eat All At Once’”: Barbaro suffered a devastating injury at the 2006 Preakness Stakes. But he wasn’t euthanized until 2007, after months of declining health.
“Mascot Community Still Reeling After Benny The Bull’s Misdemeanor Battery Charge”: Crazily enough, this really happened: The man behind Benny the Bull punched an off-duty cop while illegally driving through an outdoor festival.3

The world of international gay and lesbian sporting competition went through huge changes this year when the Gay Games, which will be held in Chicago, underwent a schism resulting in the creation of the World Outgames in Montreal. Onion Sports lists the reasons behind the split: Half of board resigned outright in protest over perpetuating stereotypes of gay men as workout-obsessed body-conscious gym rats. Organizers split on whether ballroom dancing was "way too gay" or "not nearly gay enough" to be included as an official event. Chicago's gay competitors did not want to miss a single one of their improv classes at Second City. Cyndi Lauper, who will be performing at Chicago's closing ceremony, once again proved to be an extremely divisive figure. Chicago claims its famed Boystown offers homosexual athletes a safe, gay-friendly place to relax during the games, while Montreal asserts that its entire city is pretty gay. Athletes felt Montreal cheapened the games with its attempt to increase athlete participation 100-fold by dropping the eligibility criteria of being gay. Male participants petitioned to move games to Chicago for convenience, as city is also hosting 14th annual huge-mustache competition the same week. Chicago's thousands of closeted gay athletes lobbied extremely hard to have games held in Montreal; to a much smaller extent, reverse also the case. No real schism actually exists; participants were merely unable to resist opportunity to hold two separate gala opening ceremonies.

I don’t remember the “Gay Games vs. Outgames” rivalry. The Gay Games still exists, while Outgames lasted until 2017, when it canceled that year’s event last minute.

The Onion loves a good Chicago joke, and this is full of them. My favorite:

“Male participants petitioned to move games to Chicago for convenience, as city is also hosting 14th annual huge-mustache competition the same week.”4

A pithy, if unmemorable, “Sports Fan On The Street” joke.

These jokes ran across the top of the Onion Sports homepage and are no longer online. Each is preceded by “LATEST:”

“Smirking Skip Bayless Knows Full Well He’s Wrong”
“Concussed Eric Lindros Thinks He Signed 11-Year, $11 Million Contract Twice”
“Soccer Team Wins World Cup”
“Peter Gammons Milking Brewers GM For Trade Info During Get-Well Call”
“Keith Davis Thanks Dallas For Making Him Feel Like Part Of The Community”

“Smirking Skip Bayless Knows Full Well He’s Wrong” reminds me that I worked for a guy who once edited Bayless’ newspaper columns in Dallas. This person had nothing good to say about Bayless.

ESPN just laid off longtime employees to pay talking heads. So this joke is a reminder that we chose a world where everything is a hot take. We made Skip Bayless, and we must pay the price.

The Eric Lindros and Peter Gammons jokes reflect the former’s constant concussions and the latter’s brain aneurysm.

I had to google the Keith Davis joke. He was a Dallas Cowboys player who was shot in July 2006 for the 2nd time in 3 years!

In 2006, most of The Onion’s web-only jokes appeared on the homepage. Some were archived (American Voices, Onion Magazine), while others disappeared after a few days.

Here’s what appeared on the homepage from July 19 to 25, 2006.

“Will Man Ever Put Nukes On The Moon?” is a great example of how The Onion parodied the New York Times Magazine’s serious tone.

For most of President George W. Bush’s 2nd term, The Onion parodied his weekly radio address — at one point, receiving a cease-and-desist letter for using the presidential seal.

July 24, 2006 | 2006 Onion version | 2006 Weekly Radio Address version

This is not subtle. Real-life events referenced include Bush speaking to the NAACP and meeting the president of Gabon, although Bush seems to believe he went to Lena Horne’s funeral instead of Rosa Parks’.5

Things go off the rails at the end:

Bush: I know that some blacks don’t trust the Republican Party. But you need to cut that shit out! We care.
Other Voice: Mr. President —
Bush: We give just as much a shit as the Dem—
Other Voice: Mr. President, we’re live.
Bush: What? I thought we were just rehearsin’, what the fu—

0:00

-1:07

Onion Radio News was the long-running feature hosted by fictional radioman Doyle Redland. Unfortunately, you can’t find these jokes on today’s website.

Target continued as the sponsor.

Here’s what ran from July 19 to 25, 2006.

July 19, 2006 | 2006 audio version

This is in response to Congress failing to approve a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. The tank costs $54 million, which kind of seems low?