A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Hope and Haunting in Duluth

[DrewV]

(Link to the WordPress version)
Sunday, July 6th, 2036
Duluth, MN 

It's Sunday night in Lake Superior's aging baseball cathedral, with the crackling loudspeakers of Doyle Buhl Stadium blaring somewhere high above the clubhouse.

The atmosphere of the humid locker room is generally upbeat; this young and scrappy collection of agile, expressive athletes have just soundly defeated the Borealis after a 3-run torpedo from veteran Raúl García down the right field line in the bottom of the seventh.  However, the same tension that cut the Lake Superior air in the bottom of the ninth seems to hang over the half-hearted celebration in Duluth; even as Closer Chris Acevez generated a slow roller from Borealis speedster Tony Muñóz, the consensus from the overflowing crowd of 58,000 was that of something fearful on the horizon.  With a marginal win, the Warriors concluded their second consecutive series loss. One would think that a win over the apline-azul leviathan would evoke raucous applause from the crowd of nearly 60,000 Warriors fans--but the field was instead filled with the sense of fleeting, unsecured relief--and beyond that, dread for the inevitable in the darkness over the water.

From 2022 to 2027, largely under the leadership of former GM Mark Kierstead, the Warriors enjoyed half a decade of playoff appearances under the auspices of old ghosts with nameplates like Joe Kenny and Andrés Hernández. Ten years ago this season, Closer José ‘Bullfrog’ Hernández sunk a splitter on the rookie Bartolo Mora (now a premiere raker in Florida) to claim Duluth's lone Rodriguez Cup out of the very ashes of a 3-game deficit.  Although Duluth would hold on to the Division for another year, in 2027 the bottom fell out; the bank ran dry; the entire management team seemed to vanish into the mist.  Nearly $80 Million in debt in April of 2027, headed for financial disaster, the era of Duluth as a team in contention ended with the sale of Don Mercer to the Scottish Claymores.  A decade of frustrating, mistake-ridden mediocrity set in.

Along the outdated carpet and sweating cinderblocks of the home lockeroom, mutton-chopped wunderkind Juan Velásquez smiles broadly, his pants rolled up over his bony knees, recounting his late-inning heroics with fellow kid superstar António Herrera. Starter Gary Murphy, who just bagged his ninth win over seven innings, has a moustache to match Chief's muttons.

Duluth is, at the heart of the organization, collection of stories--part truth, part legend--and as I sit in the clubhouse for the postgame I wonder if any of these kids appreciate the stories they represent. Murphy, with his eccentric moustache, spent years toiling under the shadow of his spiritual predecessor, former Warrior-Messiah Henry Carter.  Not only did Murphy take the Ace role of the Eastern Carolina Sea Dogs just one year after the departure of Carter from their shared alma mater, but he was also drafted by the Warriors in 2029 with the pick given to the Warriors in exchange for Carter.  While Cold Smoke never developed into the superstar GM Ricky McCoy advertised, Carter did manage to pitch a perfect game just one year after Duluth shipped him to Bakersfield, as if sealing some prophetic omen that the decision was cursed.  This fate was paralleled with the other messianic hero McCoy dealt away to the Bears--Jeffrey Jetstream Mendoza.  McCoy would later be fired (and eventually re-hired) following this decision. What did Duluth get in return?  Inevitably, wondrously--the young, unproven 18-year old infielder from Venezuela, future star Antonio Herrera. The two progeny of their departed shadows, joking around in the humidity of the locker room, is the stuff of legend.

Last year, I spoke to General Manager Ricky McCoy the morning after he missed his first playoff appearance by one half of a game to the Bakersfield Bears--led by the two veteran pitchers McCoy once traded away for the hope of a better future.  McCoy leaned against the wall of his office, shrugged, and simply told me "That's Duluth."

One half of a game.  It was perfect, in a twisted, torturous way.  If Duluth was going to contend for the playoffs with a late-season surge that formed out of the very air--the only way they would end it would be by falling as mathematically short as one can to the two heroes that once represented their bright future.

Duluth owes luck as much credit as any other factor--both good and bad--for her winding legacy of heartbreak.  Rookie flamethrower René Padilla, who will likely start in the PEBA All-Star game this summer, was discovered by one of McCoy's scouts in a rural church tournament in Costa Rica.  He signed the same month Henry Carter pitched his perfect game for the Bears. Chief Velasquez, who led the league in triples last year and will almost certainly join Padilla at the All-Star Game, signed his contract on New Years Eve of 2029, discovered under equally unlikely circumstances out of the Dominican Republic.  It is almost as if these young discoveries represent the lamentations of a ballclub that ascended to baseball paradise after the Rodriguez Cup in '26.

Two summers ago, Ricky McCoy returned to PEBA and Duluth with a dramatic gutting of the Warriors organization, firing half of the staff and re-arranging the entire farm system.  On the stage at Winter Meetings, after a flurry of trades no one could keep track of, McCoy dramatically told reporters  "I am tired of wringing hands over whether or not we can squeeze more blood out of second or third place. We are a large-market team with one of PEBA's best and oldest fanbases. It is time for the Duluth Warriors to come off the bench." For half a year, the plan seemed to be the second in his line of catastrophic failures.  However, with the growing success of the franchise, some hope the gambit is paying off.  If only passion and rhetoric made banners--they would line the southern entrance to Warrior Hall against Lake Superior.

So here they are--this inevitable, imperfect, haunted, anxious team of young heroes with their passionate, eccentric, and often faulty General Manager--all shadowed by the monumental price that bulldozed the pillars of their franchise nearly a decade ago in the name of an imperfect and haphazardly-executed rebuild.  In fact, to call whatever happened from 2029 to today a rebuild lacks depth--it is much better stated that a rebuild happened to Duluth. But here they are.  Not all the faces are young; PEBA legend Dan Petersen just came to a two-year extension with the club that will almost certainly see the old captain to his retirement at 39--a fraction of his former pension, but likely more than he would find on the open market. It speaks volumes to the leadership presence of the veteran ballplayer, hitting .273 in his 37th year with 33 walks.  The players listen when he speaks, which is rare, but poignant and without fluff.  A true baseball leader.

With a strange, imperfect combination of unlikely heroes, household under-performers, and workhorse laymen, the meteoric first half of the 2036 Duluth Warriors is a duality of joy and fear.  They are a deeply paradoxical and flawed club; one that can get on base but cannot score runs. They steal bases better than most, but cannot run them.  The best bullpen in baseball with a staff that garnishes no strikeouts. A week of sub-.500 ball is enough to reincarnate all of the fears and hopelessness of an inevitably mediocre ballclub back out of the grave.  Are they good enough?  Has their luck run out? If Duluth sees success this postseason, it will not be due to careful, inevitable calculations, but rather a cosmic meteor of passion, luck, and hope. The team has little of the generational talent of typical PEBA dynasties--and seem as surprised as anyone to see themselves eight games ahead of Kalamazoo headed into the All-Star break.

Here in the half-light of the old stadium, as the last of the beleaguered, satiated fans fish their keys out and roar away into the night, a sense of weary hope permeates from all sides. Duluth went from twelve to eight games ahead of the rising Badgers in just seven days. Although it seems almost certain  that the Warriors, pending the catastrophic collapses they are well-known for, should see the postseason this October--Division title or not.  Losing an entire four games of that lead in one week is sobering to any ballclub--but to Duluth, well--that's Duluth--only ever really half a game away.

James Kerrigan, Interlake register

[Apollos]

Great article, love to read the stuff you write

I've been bullish on the warriors the last couple years and therefore may be a little overly optimistic on the expected outcome in 2036, but that's a talented young core and K-Zoo hasn't seemed to catch any breaks this year. Sometimes things just align...

[Arroyos]

With a little help from Puck, the Warriors might find their way out of the woods and into the Athenian spotlight.