By Mike Cuno, The Nevada Sagebrush

August 25, 2013: Fargo, ND – Rumors continue to circulate in the Reno clubhouse that David Goode has in fact disappeared.  But since he has started in all 12 of the Tenpinners’ games since he was placed on waivers (and hit a typical 9-for-42, a .214 average), it’s a strange allegation, to say the least.  Still, it persists.

Outside the clubhouse, several of Goode’s teammates have admitted that whoever is wearing David Goode’s #99 uniform isn’t behaving like David Goode.  None of the cocky swagger associated with the 12 Million Dollar Man.  None of his arrogant who-gives-a-damn attitude.  Even his clothing has changed: Goode was known for his thousand-dollar Armani suits, but the new Goode – the post-waivers Goode – is wearing Levi’s and cotton shirts to work these days.  Which is why a few players, who choose to remain nameless, think the front office has hired a Hollywood stuntman to replace the real David Goode.

The club’s silence on the subject adds to the players’ suspicions, and David – be it the real David or some stand-in – refuses to be interviewed.  The ballclub seems to be protecting their Star of Statistical Suckdom.  Reporters can’t get near him.

But his teammates have noticed a change in David, and several point back to that game on August 10, when Goode went 3-for-5.  “After the game,” said one player who asked to remain anonymous, “Goode wasn’t smiling or anything.  I mean, we won – won big – and he’d had a great day, but he wasn’t celebrating.  Snuck off when the rest of us were still in the dugout and on the field giving high fives.  By the time we got to the showers, he was gone.”  Another player reported seeing Goode sneak out of the clubhouse without showering, still wearing his uniform.  A third said Goode had told him the day before that bad news was coming and that he wasn’t going to just sit around here and take it.

What really happened, we may never know, but the rumor mill is cranking ‘em out in the Reno clubhouse.  There’s speculation that, depressed by his miserable performance on the field, Goode jumped to his death from the top of the Silver Legacy Hotel in downtown Reno; that he had gambling problems, blew most of his $12 million salary for this year, got in trouble with high rollers from Vegas, and now his body has been dumped in the desert; that a hooker mugged and knifed him on Commercial Row and left him to bleed out; even that the Tenpinners front office planned his abduction and are holding him hostage in one of the warehouses out in Sparks in order to avoid paying him the remaining $42 million of his contract.

 Rumor is no stranger to David Goode.  It has followed him since he first signed his six-year, $74 million contract.  No one could believe any PEBA club would pay a modestly talented infielder so much money, so folks began looking for explanations.  Did David have a special “in” with the former Yuma GM who negotiated the inflated contract?  Did he have mob connections that pressured Yuma into overpaying him?  Were Mexican drug lords using the border town of Yuma and a naive young ballplayer named Goode to launder their illegal profits?  Or was the Yuma GM just out of his mind?  We’ll never know.  The former GM of the Bulldozers resigned a year and a half ago and hasn’t been heard from since.

The question remains: How did he do it?  How did David Goode turn an unspectacular career into the PEBA’s most spectacular contract?

After three modest seasons with Florida, Goode had his best season in 2010, the year he became a free agent.  He hit .271, 35 points above his career average, generating a VORP of 33.9, more than double any other season.  Talk about good timing!  David had his career season, went on the free agent market and landed a whopper of a contract with the hitting-starved Yuma organization.  This is the kind of inflated salary that eventually sunk the old MLB into bankruptcy.  It can corrupt young men, seducing them into betraying their talent on the field for the glittering promise of fame and fortune.  It’s the kind of money that attracts gamblers and mobsters, the kind that makes murder seem plausible.

Someone was bound to go looking for the answers.  The only surprise is who that someone is… and who is paying his expenses.