By Chiba Yumi, Niihama-shi Intelligencer

Sept. 29, 2014: Niihama City, Japan – Ghosts officials, desperate as attendance levels plummet, announced a new promotion today: a special set of baseball cards devoted to the team’s high-priced and injury-prone 2014 free agents.

Titled “The Bums of Summer”, a set of four special cards will be given to fans attending the team’s next home game on October 7^th versus Kure.  The cards “honor” four of the team’s six big free agent off-season signings.  Each inked lucrative deals, only to spend significant amounts of time on the disabled list.

The four cards, shown below, depict SP Juan Castro ($19M for two years; three months on DL), 2B Jun Sugimoto ($3M; out for season), LF Tabito Matsushima ($4.5M; out for season) and RF Roberto Rodríguez ($9M; nearly two months on DL).

“We expect that these cards will quickly become collectors’ items,” said Ghosts Director of Promotions Nakamuru Miharu.  “We hope fans turn out in droves.”

What constitutes a “drove” may be relative.  The team has publicly set a goal of 1.4 million in attendance for this season, but attendance in the past month has fallen off a cliff and reaching that goal is now in doubt.  Privately, officials are hoping simply to draw about 10,000 for each of squad’s remaining 12 games.

It may not be easy.  The team’s last home game, September 24^th against the Shinkansen, drew just 3,546 fans (and at least four were homeless people who’d been given tickets, according to a source). Attendees reported that it was so quiet in the stands, they could hear Team Trainer Shojiro Sasaki flatulating in the dugout.