February 3, 2035

Manchester Boutique

L.H. Thompson

Let’s not beat around the bushes, dear readers: since returning to the PEBA for the start of the 2029 season the on-field performances of the local 9 have been abject. What has taken place off the field has been, unbelievably, even worse. Over the course of this miserable run, the Maulers front office has plumbed the depths of sporting ineptitude: it has cycled through multiple Assistant General Managers; it has endeavored upon periodic, increasingly desperate “course corrections” that lead to splashing big money in free agency on washed–up “stars”; and it has issued interminable, fantastical missives from the desk of erstwhile, long-time General Manager Morris Cooley imploring patience and “courage” from the fan base. The single positive development during this long winter of our discontent – the forced sale of the franchise to current owner José Rodriguez when former owner Arturo Bruto’s continued puerile, adolescent fantasies finally became too much for the PEBA Board to stomach – carried with it an embarrassing stench. Indeed, these years have been so humiliating for supporters that even the contemporaneous sweeping aside of Bruto’s obsequious “advisor” (a man so vile and infamous that I refuse to any longer acknowledge his name in the pages of this august publication) offered little more than cold comfort. Yes, dear reader, these have been dark times.

Rodriguez, of course, swept into town promising big things. Having made his fortune offering dubious financial advice to consumers groaning under the weight of poor credit, Rodriguez was accustomed to gilding rotten and corrupt realities with his golden touch. But Maulers baseball was, and continues to be, something else altogether. No amount of his spending, cajoling, motivating, or despairing has made a difference: the Manchester Maulers are a franchise bereft of hope, seemingly playing out the string of solvency until the realization of some coming future calamity that will no doubt seem, in retrospect, inevitable (Financial collapse? Fan rebellion? Franchise relocation? Another contraction?). Any fair-minded and honest observer can see all of this clearly. Rodriguez has simply been throwing good money after bad.

Thus is today’s announcement that Rodriguez has ordered a renovation of Whiten Field that will, among other upgrades, expand the old ball yard’s seating capacity to 55,000 less surprising than it is concerning. While the club did not announce the total cost of renovations, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that our affable but misguided owner has, after years of growing panic, finally gone round the bend.

Let Rodriguez learn the truth that we the long-suffering already know: this franchise will destroy you if you let it. It pays back faith, commitment, and loyalty only with ashes. Detecting the scent of an unsuspecting neophyte in its vicinity, the Manchester Maulers baseball club – our inescapable, carnivorous Leviathan – has once again opened its yawning maw. May God help its next victim.