NLN: BREAKING NEWS
By Francis Ferry, NLN baseball writer
After his arrest, Crocker had been taken from the airport to the local jail. He was to be incarcerated there until formal charges were levied against him for possession and smuggling after drug sniffing dogs discovered a package he was carrying contained illegal substances. Upon his arraignment, he was to be transported to a federal prison outside Mexico City.
Reports are that the stunned Crocker spent most of his time trying to convince the local deputies that he was someone special and that there had been a big mistake. One jailer simply shook his head when asked, claiming Crocker kept repeating, “I George Crocker, you know?” Aside from irritating the jail personnel with this mantra, George had been viewed as a model prisoner during his brief stay.
After investigation of his cell, Authorities came out looking quite red in the face. “It appears,” began police chief Jorge González, “that Señor Crocker took the spoon from his morning bowl of gruel and dug a hole through the adobe brick wall that was the exterior of the jail.” A round of snickers arose from local reporters. “We do not know how he managed this or how it happened without anyone’s knowledge, but we shall continue to investigate this escape. We are in the process of putting a posse together to locate the fugitive.”
When asked about where they expect to begin their search, González said, “We are Cabo San Lucas, the bottom of the peninsula. It’s water in all directions except for the narrow strip of land running northward. We’ll find him, and if we don’t, good luck crossing the border.”
Crocker signed with the Bogota Caribs a week before Christmas of 2012 and led the floundering team to the brink of the post-season for the first time. Heading into the week’s showdown with Cabo San Lucas, they held a narrow one-game lead, but in the wake of the arrest, the Bogota team lost all three to fall out of the post-season. How much of Bogota’s success was due to Crocker is up for debate; the former PEBA star hit .223 with 5 HR and 20 RBI in 40 games.
