by Midorikawa Michiyo, Niihama-shi Chronicle

October 3, 2011: Niihama, Japan – Four months after our exclusive report that the General Manager of the Ghosts is purely fictitious, your faithful correspondent has uncovered an even more outrageous revelation: making all decisions for the squad this season is the long-time clubhouse janitor.

Tomomi “Tommy-boy” Tomonaga, 67, has been with the team since its inception.  He is often only seen before and after games cleaning up locker room floors and urinals, and washing soiled uniforms and jockstraps.  He rarely interacts with the players, and many of the youngsters on the team don’t even know his name.

But sources close to the team tell the Chronicle that at the start of the 2011 season, the new Ghosts owner, Akane Kenkyusham, decided he didn’t want to spend any money on a General Manager.  “Our janitor could do just a good a job,” he reportedly told aides, who took the notion literally and interviewed Tomonaga for the position.

What they found, according to our sources, was that this quiet, elderly man actually possessed a wealth of knowledge about baseball, including front office matters.  The expertise was apparently the result of decades of cleaning clubhouses of teams at all levels, and listening – as our source put it – “…like a fly on the wall.”  And his depth of knowledge left jaws dropped.  “He knew OPS and VORP, he knew Rule 5, he knew arbitration and scouting.  We were astounded.”

The sources say Kenkyusham, impressed by this, gave Tommy-boy a slight raise in his already pitiful salary and declared that all managerial decisions would come from the slight and little-known figure.

“We knew that wouldn’t fly with the press,” says our source.  “So we concocted this story that this American minor league manager, Mike Dunn, was running the team.  You in the media didn’t need long to figure out that was a hoax.”

This latest revelation is sure to rock Ghosts faithful as the team nears the end of the season, trailing the division leading Shin Seiki Evas by just 2.5 games and assured now of a second straight postseason appearance.

Our sources appear to have been willing to come forward in the wake of Tomonaga’s decision to award veteran DH Shiggy Memoto a two-year, $22 million contract extension despite concern that Memoto is nearing 40.  The move prompted a flurry of second-guessing amongst fans, players, and even other LRS general managers, all of whom wonder if it jeopardizes the team’s financial stability and ability to compete in coming seasons.

“A lot of stuff now makes sense,” said team captain and All-Star third baseman Nobuhito Hasegawa when told of the disclosure.  “Some of the strange decisions can now be accounted for.  We, the players, are disappointed, to say the least.”

The Chronicle is currently attempting to arrange an exclusive interview with Tomonaga and hope to bring you that in the coming weeks.

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