Sandgnats, Bulldozers and the Great Colorado Water Deal

[Arroyos]

Sandgnats, Bulldozers and the Great Colorado Water Deal


“The water deal,” Mayberry said. “What I remember is this.” And he proceeded to explain to Slummings about a deal arranged back in 2028, just before the season began, with the Crystal Lake Sandgnats. Years of drought had lowered the water level in Crystal Lake to critical levels. Since the lake was a tourist attraction important to local businesses and provided water for the community, including the Sand Gnats’ stadium, the town and the team desperately needed to replenish the lake water. But the club was in financial straits; they couldn’t even pay their vendor salaries. So they turned to the Bulldozers to fashion a deal that would dump salary and get some water in exchange.

“Water? From Yuma?” Slummings asked.

“Colorado River Water,” Mayberry explained. “We handed them a thousand gallons and a million dollars in cash in exchange for a couple players and two first round draft picks.”

“Wait … a thousand gallons? That’s not enough to refill a lake, is it?”

“Hardly. We gave them a thousand gallons of bottled water, to sell in the stadium. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, we started hauling truckloads of river water, unbottled, to Crystal Lake. Went on for weeks, with all the ‘deliveries,’ as we called them, taking place at night.”

“The trucks dumped the water in the lakes under the cover of darkness.”

“Exactly. It worked. Lake levels rose slowly, the community was pleased, and the ball club recovered from its financial and aquatic crises. Cool, huh?”

“Yeah, only …”

“Only what?”

“Why keep it secret?”

“Yuma doesn’t own the Colorado River. We have a license from the city to filter and bottle a limited number of gallons a week for sale, not to transport millions of gallons to Illinois.” Mayberry stopped and stared at Slummings. “Why don’t you know this? The water rights came with the ball club. You own them now!”

Slummings looked puzzled. “All Roberta told me was that the bottled water business was handled by outside contractors.”

“Sly woman, that Roberta. I miss her. She kept you out of the shady side of the business.”

“Is that why she insisted on this meeting? So you would tell me, rather than her?”

“I’ll bet that’s part of it. But she’s angling to get me back to Yuma, you know that. She’s been my biggest supporter for years. She figured if she could get you down here—-you and your bank account—-that somehow you’d find a way to bring me back with you.”

“She told you that?”

“She didn’t have to.” Mayberry gave Slummings a meaningful look.

Slummings grunted something that sounded like “I see.”

“Look,” Mayberry said, “you should know the whole story.”

“There’s more than just water theft?”

Mayberry nodded, “Yup,” and began to tell Slummings the rest of the story. To keep the water theft secret, Mayberry and Roberta had to hire someone to spend a couple nights a week backing trucks down a dirt access road to a remote section of the Colorado River, just above Yuma, and pumping river water into the trucks, then driving them halfway across the country to the small town of Crystal Lake, Illinois. There they would wait until nightfall, empty the water and return.

“It was exhausting, it was illegal, and it was boring as hell,” Mayberry continued. “So we had to ask yourselves, who do we have that we can trust with such work? Who could we even persuade to do it?”

Slummings thought for a moment, then said, “Minor league ball players.”

“Yup,” Mayberry confirmed. “And we needed someone we could rely on to select those minor leaguers and supervise them. A foreman, sort of. Well, in the spring of 2028, Vinnie de Brouwer was impressing everyone in spring training. He was a tall, strong young man with a promising future. And a big mouth. If he had found out about the deal, he’d have shouted it from Yuma to the Commissioner’s office, so we made him part of it. We took him aside, told him we would bring him up to the majors during the season and guaranteed him a million dollar bonus, if he would do some outside ‘contracting’ work for us. And keep his mouth shut. He was hungry and ambitious and needed the money, so he took the deal. And we have been in his debt ever since.”

“Vinnie de Brouwer? The kid who lost like 20 straight one year?”

“Twenty-three to be exact, yup, in 2029, the very next year. We kept our word and brought him up, even though he wasn’t ready for the big leagues. But we owed him. Still do.”

“Didn’t we just hire him to coach in Kivalina?”

“You did, yes! I couldn’t believe it. Well done.”

“I didn’t do it,” Slummings said.

“Ah,” Mayberry said nodding, “Roberta. Should have known. She took Vinnie under her wing his first couple years, made sure we kept our promises to him, helped him endure that 0-23 season. So it makes sense she would hire him as a coach. Still taking care of the kid.”

“He brags about that season. I don’t think she had to help him ‘endure it,’ as you say. He’s proud of it.”

“Now he does, of course, he set a PEBA record that won’t ever be matched. But at the time …”

“Took its toll on the kid, huh? To be expected.”

“And Roberta got him through it.”

“So, you keep this whole water thing hush-hush for him?”

“For him, for the other players we hired, and for the club. I suppose we could still be sued by farmers downstream who got less water than their allotment because of our theft.”

“Farmers have an allotment?”

“Every cubic foot of water in the Colorado is ‘owned’ by someone. The amount each party gets to use is determined by a tri-state commission. And though they are the next-to-last group the water reaches, even the farmers in Southern California have an annual allotment of so many cubic feet of Colorado River water. Their crops depend on it.”

“You said they’re the ‘next-to-last’ group that gets water.”

“Yup.”

“The last would be …?” When Mayberry didn’t fill in the blank, Slummings took a guess. “Mexico?”

“Yup, but let’s not mention Mexico. They could make it an international incident if they ever found out. So,” Mayberry held a single finger in front of his lips, “not a word.”

Slummings nodded. “Maybe, when we get out of here and back to Yuma, we should do something during spring training this year to recognize Vinnie’s, uh, special status in the Arroyo organization.”

“Arroyo organization!” Mayberry sputtered. “I can’t get used to that name. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’ve known about the water business all along, and you intentionally chose a dry river bed for the team’s new logo to hide the water shenanigans.”

Mayberry studied Slummings face, then repeated himself, “If I didn’t know better.”

“But you do, don’t you?” Slummings asked. “Know better.”

“I thought I did, but I’m beginning to question it now.”

Slummings smiled, “Well, come tomorrow, I’m told, you won’t remember a bit of it!”

Mayberry laughed. “Tomorrow then.”

“Hundred bucks I’m out of here tomorrow,” Slummings said as he rose from the bed.

Mayberry pulled a bulky pillow from beneath the other pillows on his bed and turned it upside down. APBA baseball cards spilled out across the blanket. “One hundred cards says you don’t.”

Slummings whistled. "Lot of cards. And there's no John or Mark among them?"

"You think I'd still be sleeping here if there were?"

Slummings nodded, "Guess not," and headed for the door, then turned back to look at Mayberry. “No one’s going to collect this bet, are they? Since neither of us will remember today when we wake tomorrow, right?”

“Right,” Mayberry said. “That’s how it works. Time, I mean.”

Slummings rolled his eyes, then closed the door behind himself.

Another day, another dollar, another deal. Thank heavens (and the Colorado River) they both had bottled water to get them through the long memory-erasing night ahead.

[Borealis]

I love this and how it tied into Yuma lore, Vinnie, and the Yuman rebranding - awesome!!

[Arroyos]

I love this and how it tied into Yuma lore, Vinnie, and the Yuman rebranding - awesome!!

Thank you. I was pleased it all came together. I owe RJ a thanks for reminding me about the 2028 water for draft picks trade.

[Sandgnats]

I love this and how it tied into Yuma lore, Vinnie, and the Yuman rebranding - awesome!!

Thank you. I was pleased it all came together. I owe RJ a thanks for reminding me about the 2028 water for draft picks trade.

I'm looking forward to part 2 this offseason Bob :)