Saturday, April 2, 2011
L.H. Thompson, Manchester Boutique

Jeff Dudas’s inability to keep a secret has apparently accomplished what no amount of incompetence and baseball ignorance could do: cost him his job as General Manager of the Manchester Maulers baseball club.  Dudas’s exposure of Maulers’ owner Arturo Bruto’s hair-brained scheme to reunite a washed-up rock band is allegedly responsible for his removal from authority.  Former Head Scout Morris Cooley, who has in recent days taken a much more visible role in the organization, has been named the new General Manager.

The utterly bizarre quality of the events surrounding Dudas’s dismissal must not, however, overshadow what is a bright and hopeful day.  Indeed, Dudas’s sacking and Cooley’s promotion, no matter how or for what ostensible reason they occurred, are quite simply the best things that have ever happened to this franchise.  Cooley – the only competent, forthright and upstanding member of the entire Maulers’ organization – appears to now have the full confidence of Bruto, who has reportedly spent most of the last several weeks alternating between abject rage at Dudas and sorrowful contemplation of the Bush oeuvre.

Additionally, I have learned from confidential sources that Cooley has been working behind the scenes for much of the offseason, carefully laying the groundwork for today’s spectacular putsch.  This news of Cooley’s influence perhaps sheds light on the generally well-regarded reconstruction of the Maulers’ roster during the winter months.  That roster overhaul, and the general competence that it has evinced, has been a subject of consternation among Maulers’ fans and industry insiders for several weeks now.  How was it, so many wondered, that a malodorous boob like Dudas could have accomplished such a rebuild?  The answer, the only answer that ever made sense, is now clear: it was Cooley’s doing all along.

Those same confidential sources reveal that Dudas did not go down without a fight.  That Dudas’s attempts to hang on to power – efforts that proceeded at a fevered pace in the days following the recent press conference at which the failure of Bruto’s ludicrous scheme was made public – were deeply flawed and embarrassing is not surprising.  Dudas reportedly made a last-ditch effort to convince Bruto of his baseball acumen by harassing San Antonio GM Matt Higgins into trading him Jack Cobb!, the insufferable clown prince of the PEBA, whose antics have earned him a well-deserved reputation as a deluded oaf.  Misguidedly convinced of Cobb’s star power, Dudas planned, I am told, to install Jack Cobb! as the player-manager of the Maulers.  The desperate plot was foiled, and Dudas’s fate sealed, only when New Orleans GM Paul Tanner stumbled upon Dudas’s nefarious plan and announced it to an incredulous public.  It was at this point that Cooley finally convinced Bruto to remove Dudas from power.

While Dudas has been dismissed as GM, he will remain with the Maulers’ organization.  In an irony worthy of the Bard, Cooley has insisted that Dudas fill his previous position as Head Scout.  Cooley’s first official action as GM was to send Dudas to Wasilla, Alaska, where he will conduct “advance scouting” on a league that is two months away from beginning play.  This expulsion to the wilderness is as appropriate as it is satisfying.  For in keeping the estranged former GM within the organization, Cooley has ensured that we will still have Jeff Dudas to kick around.