Until Tuesday at Seahawks headquarters, the most bizarre and amusing mock news conference I had attended involved, of all people, the Mariners’ Randy Johnson.

It was June 1997, and the day before, the Big Unit had given up an insanely mammoth home run to the hulking Mark McGwire. If you ever wondered what would happen if the strongest player in baseball (hold your wisecracks) perfectly timed the hardest fastball in baseball (Johnson struck out 19 in that game), we all got to witness the result — a rocket blast off a 98 mph heater to the upper environs of the Kingdome. It was initially announced at 538 feet, then amended to 474 feet. I’ll always believe the first number.

The next day, Johnson circulated word among the media that he wanted to hold a news conference before the game. We all hastily gathered in an empty equipment room, puzzled by the whole thing. Johnson began gravely telling reporters of his suspicions that McGwire had used a doctored bat. And he was pulling it off. We thought we had a blockbuster.

Johnson said he had awakened in the middle of the night, headed to the Kingdome, obtained a key to the visiting clubhouse, rifled through McGwire’s equipment bag, and obtained the bat, which he would now reveal.

And then, finally came the punch line. Johnson pulled out a dinky souvenir bat with a wine cork taped to the barrel.

“I really thought he’d use a bigger bat. And I really think he could have done a better job,’’ Johnson said, smirking.

It was a good laugh, well-executed, all the more so because of Johnson’s famously stern persona. I never thought I’d ever again see something so incongruous and weird in the guise of a formal media gathering.

Until Richard Sherman and Doug Baldwin (well, a cardboard cutout of Baldwin) took the stage Tuesday.

By now, I’m sure, you’ve all seen the video of Sherman and Cardboard Doug (a much more benign incarnation than Angry Doug) laying waste to the hypocrisy of the NFL.

It was a little corny, and maybe a bit tone-deaf, in light of the exploding real-life drama out of Ferguson, Mo. Many people have already pointed out that both players are being paid handsomely by the very league they’re mocking, which makes their moral high ground a little tenuous.

But there was also truth to be gleaned from their skewering of the NFL over issues of player safety, hypocrisy about beer sponsorships, the fact the league requires players to talk but regulates what they can talk about, and the inconsistency and occasional lunacy of the NFL system of fines.

Even as a California grad, I’ve got to hand it to these Stanford products for displaying a keen eye for the theater of the absurd, and for having the chutzpah to put themselves out there — even if it costs them a fine of their own.

Which it almost certainly will; somehow I don’t think Roger Goodell is going to find this as knee-slapping as everyone else. But judging by Sherman’s gleeful giggling as he and Baldwin exited the stage, that was definitely a risk they were willing to take.

One thing the Seahawks have indisputably done in the past week is drag the issue of media obligations by NFL players into the harsh sunlight for a thorough re-examination.

This is their third absurdist media session in the past week or so, following two highly reluctant ones by Marshawn Lynch. In the first, Lynch ignored every question and instead talked about either his shoes or rap music; then, after Sunday’s win over Arizona, he responded to virtually every query with a one-word response, “Yeah.”

Lynch was trying to circumvent the NFL’s requirement to make himself available to reporters — an ongoing irritant for the running back. Lynch’s $100,000 fine for not talking to the media after the game at Kansas City was the obvious impetus for Sherman’s performance Tuesday.

I’m genuinely torn here. I believe somewhere within all this, there’s a journalistic principle to stand up for. The media is, after all, the conduit between the players and the public, and for as much as I hear from people begging us to let Marshawn be, they’re also gobbling up every aspect of this saga.

Yet at some point, if the player is so dead-set against talking that he repeatedly makes a mockery of the process, then you’ve got to figure out a different way. Lynch deserves grudging credit for his ingenuity; as Terry Blount of ESPN.com wrote, he has outsmarted the NFL. But what’s happening now is serving no one, except maybe iconoclastic websites like Deadspin.

At any rate, it appears the Seahawks have finally found a unifying theme to foster the “us against the world” mentality they have always thrived upon.

It’s hard to feel put upon when you’ve won a Super Bowl and everyone keeps telling you how great you are. Bill Parcells on “Mike and Mike” Tuesday referred to the constant adulation after reaching the top as “eating the cheese”: “They eat, and it’s poison. It takes a little while to figure out this stuff doesn’t taste so good, and if you don’t get rid of it, we’re not going anywhere this year.”

The Seahawks’ antidote to poisonous cheese, it appears, is to rage against the machine — in this instance, the media that covers them and the league that requires their participation.

The fact that a vast majority of the locker room is cordial and cooperative in their media dealings — with Sherman and Baldwin near the top of the list, by the way — just emphasizes the cleverness of this ruse.

But I still hope the next news conference doesn’t include a cardboard cutout. Or a souvenir bat.

Larry Stone: 206-464-3146 or lstone@seattletimes.com. On Twitter @StoneLarry

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