In London today it is an unusually sunny and surprisingly temperate day, considering its January. An auspicious start to the day for the organizers of today’s gathering, dubbed “An Underground Funeral”. Permits in hand they have successfully petitioned to have one block adjacent to Pearson Metropolitan Ballpark shut down for the event, theoretically allowing for a quite sizable crowd if it were to materialize. At the front of the cordoned area, nearest to the main entrance of the ballpark, a simple raised platform about fifteen feet across has been erected with a simple lectern placed front and center. Behind it across the stage are four easels holding signs or pictures, but what they are exactly is currently unknown due to black cloth draped over each of them creating a rather dramatic effect.

A crowd has begun to gather, a motley crew of Underground fans from all walks of life. The initial atmosphere is subdued, despite British sports fans reputation for being notoriously rowdy and unhinged – a well earned reputation from years of Premiere League and other local leagues. While the Underground fandom has not yet taken on quite that level of fever pitch overall there is surely a crossover between both types of fanbases. At the moment there are no foul chants or colorful signs, just a smattering of Union Jacks unfurled and flapping loosely in the mild January air. Over the course of the next hour the crowd continued to swell, eventually filling more than half of the block, and comprising several hundred individuals. A few moments after the planned start time, an unidentified male takes the stage wearing a red Underground jersey. Though this event has been loosely organized, some in the crowd may recognize him as the primary voice of the movement to this point and main organizer and funding source for this event. His name is not really known and absolutely does not matter. The crowd quiets itself seeing the central figure standing at the lectern.

Act 1: A Funeral

“We are gathered here today to celebrate the life…and the untimely death…of a young, dynamic, and successful baseball team here in London.” As the voice echoed from the speakers there was a smattering of boos and general unhappy murmurs of agreement. “Through unspeakable greed and callous disregard for the us, the fans, Cyan Winters has put the futures of all of our brightest young stars at risk. You know their names…” as the speaker rattles off the sequence of names an individual behind the stage pulls the cloth covering each successive poster off to reveal a portrait of the just named player. “Rocky Nichols, the original Prince that was Promised of the Underground. At just 27 years old already well on his way to becoming one of the greatest hitters in our storied history”. Cheers and applause erupt from the crowd before quickly silencing as the speaker raises a hand. “Zak Osmond, at just 22 years old already an All Star and two-time All-leather winner, on top of winning the 2037 Wunderkind award.” The crowd erupts again, even more loudly than for Nichols. “Mike Roberts, the man who finally brought stability and skill back to our catcher position and an unquestionable leader as a Captain of this team.” Another brief pause as the crowd acknowledges their Catcher and Captain. “And finally, Juan Chavarria, our All-Star tirelessly patrolling center field who never misses a chance to swipe a bag.” A fan favorite locally in London, Chavarria gets bigger applause than one might expect compared to his already named peers. “All these men and quite a few more are due contracts at the end of the year. Contracts that surely we’ll not be able to give them all because the coffers have been emptied!” A course of boos ignites, and in short order a series of extremely profane chants spark up and echo throughout the block. The speaker takes a step back, allowing the crowd to work itself up. It has continued to grow throughout and now fills the block, ever more voices lending themselves to the chorus of discontent.

Finally the speaker steps back to the lectern and the crowd mostly quiets. “None of this had to happen, none of it should have happened. This may be the first funeral for our great team, but if we don’t rise up and take it back it won’t be the last!” Behind him the posters and easels are quickly being taken down, signifying the event is moving on to its next act. “And if you’re all with me, and you all want to fight to wrest back control of this team from this greedy, lazy, bastard we’ve got pissing down on us from his ivory tower then put your hands together for closest thing we’ve got to a chance in this fight – the granddaughter of Sir John Fowler Jr himself – Eleanor Fowler!” The crowd, predictably, erupts into a cacophony of sound and motion as a new figure quickly bounds up the stairs to the stage.

Act 2: A Burial

A week ago, the granddaughter of Sir John Fowler Jr. was completely unknown to both Underground fans and the public at large. Being the family of a billionaire business mogul surely had its benefits but for her part thus far in life Eleanor had kept a low profile and lived a mostly normal life that had simply benefited from higher quality education and never a worry about paying bills. With all the prerequisite business degrees on her wall, she has been quickly climbing the corporate leadership ladder, making a name for herself in small professional circles but nowhere else. That had all changed a week ago when she penned an op-ed in The Times that could be argued to have brought this whole event finally together. Even that piece, however, never insinuated her family should take the team back or that she specifically would want that chair, merely arguing against the current ownership rather than advocating for a specific replacement. But now that has changed. There is about to be a face behind a movement. A movement to sack an owner.

Ms. Fowler steps to the lectern and looks over the now very large and very quiet mass of people. “My name is Eleanor Fowler. My grandfather owned this team for a generation. He loved this team, he loved the players, he loved all of you. If he were a younger man still, he’d be standing here today. We may never have been the richest team back then, but we had integrity. My grandfather never took a dime from this team, the thought never crossed his mind. How could it? And yet for this charlatan sitting up in the owner’s box now it seems second nature! Cyan Winters has taken 50 million dollars from not just this team, but from each of you! From the pockets of Nichols, Osmond, Roberts and all the rest. He has put a blanket over this team and begun to smother it even as his ownership claws out of its own infancy. And rather than facing it, facing all of you, he and his whole leadership cabal have just hidden. They hope it will go away, that we will just shut up and buy our tickets and our overpriced beers and swallow our pride because baseball is back. Well, I am here today to tell them all it won’t go away. We will not go away. We are the voices of the Underground and we will be heard!”

She raises her fist into the air and the audience, which to this point has been clinging to every word, erupts. Dueling chants begin, with one part cheering for the speaker and their hope for the future and the other part expressing vitriol for Winters and the current ownership situation. Eleanor, fist still defiantly in the air, looks around and smiles. This is going better than she could have hoped for, and the image of her as the voice of this movement will go a long way from here. Putting a hand back on the lectern, like a conductor, she quiets the crowd again. “So, let us take this ownership group, this so-called Winters Baseball Unlimited, and show them that the only thing unlimited in this town is a pissed off fanbase’s willingness to burn it all down to get what they want. The only language they speak is money, so let us take that from them. No tickets, no jerseys, don’t even watch the games on TV until those bastards relinquish their death grip on our once beloved team. Down with Winters!”

Act 3: A Fire Lit

No sooner had she stepped off the stage than the whole tenor of the event changed. It was personal now, and it felt like everyone there wanted their own part in a change. A few errant, empty bottles flew from the crowd and smashed against the brick façade of Pearson Metropolitan Ballpark. A handful of creative fans had created crude effigies of Winters and now held them aloft for all to see – before lighting them on fire to great response. Again, the chants and songs, too crude to print, echoed down the block. The crowd was stirred up by an emotional gathering but also by an unreasonable amount of day drinking and just the general haze of insanity that tends to grip large gatherings, particularly of enthusiastic sports fans. The Underground had not necessarily had “hooligans” prior to this moment, but it seemed as though they were being born in real time now. As the amount of small fires and improvised projectiles grew so too did the police presence. It took many hours for the crowd to finally disperse, though what had felt like it could have tipped into something more serious never came to pass. In the end the only casualties were some unlucky trash cans, set ablaze like the effigies, and countless bottles smashed, mostly against the wall of stadium as the first were. The posters of Nichols, Osmond, Roberts, and Chavarria were propped against the main gates, which had remained closed throughout. Fans who had either brought flowers or “borrowed” them from local sources placed them ironically on the ground in front of the posters. In a move that only confirmed what had been earlier said about them, the only reaction Winters Baseball Unlimited had to the event was to call the police and demand a security cordon around their headquarters despite it being several miles away and not a single demonstrator being there.

The following morning the local news boosted the story far and wide through print, television, digital, and radio channels. Every sports talk program in the country, even if it had never talked about baseball prior, led with the story and took calls from incensed fans. Major sports networks across the globe covered the story as well. The coverage signal boosted both the financial disturbances from WBU and Eleanor Fowler’s campaign to oust the WBU. Officially, neither side had much to say about it that following day, but the fans and the Fowler’s were both well past the point of press releases. This moment and this movement now had a life all its own.