Roberta Umor, Yuma Sun

April 15, 2012: Yuma, AZ — The Yuma Bulldozers announced today that their former assistant general manager, Bob Swanfeld, has apparently gone missing.

Swanfeld was recently reassigned to the Bulldozers’ short season-A franchise in Kivalina, Alaska.  He had fallen out of favor with Yuma’s GM, Bob Mayberry, for alleged fraud – specifically, forging the GM’s signature on unapproved documents and, most recently, leaking management’s plans to increase fan support to the press before those plans were approved by the PEBA Commissioner’s office.

Swanfeld’s dereliction was rewarded with a new assignment to Alaska, where he was to take over the day-to-day operations of the Kivalina Bowheads, but he never arrived.

Kivalina is the northernmost baseball franchise in North America, 120 miles above the Arctic Circle.  This puts it a good 245 miles further north than the thriving baseball town of Fairbanks, where each summer – on the summer solstice, to be exact (either June 20 or 21) – a midnight baseball game is played… in daylight!

In Kivalina, the short summer season is a perfect fit for the short season single-A ballclubs that play in the fittingly named Surf and Snow Amalgamation League.  In the Land of the Midnight Sun, the sky never darkens from mid-May to mid-July and the sun only sets for a few minutes in June.  Most of the Kivalina ballgames are thus played late at night, when the cool twilight breeze reduces the fog of mosquitoes long enough for folks to sit outside and enjoy a ballgame.

According to SkyWest Airlines officials, Swanfeld flew from Yuma to Los Angeles on the 10^th of April but never boarded his flight to Anchorage, Alaska, where he had reservations on a connecting flight to Kivalina.  Swanfeld’s one-way ticket to Kivalina was cashed in a few hours prior to his scheduled departure from LAX.  After that, he disappeared.

Los Angeles police have scoured the airport, interviewing employees and passengers who might have seen Swanfeld, but no leads have emerged.  Meanwhile, Yuma police are contacting Swanfeld’s friends and coworkers in Yuma to see if any of them have heard from the elusive baseball executive.

In Kivalina, local residents are nonplussed by the disappearance.

“Swan who?” several asked.  “There’s a baseball team in Kivalina?” another rejoined.

But in Yuma, panic has struck the Bulldozer offices.  Rumors are flying, and many fear that Swanfeld has absconded with money set aside for future player development.

“If that money’s gone,” one unnamed source in the GM’s office muttered, “well, if it’s gone, we’re up [expletive] creek without the proverbial paddle, if you know what I mean.”

“If he took that money,” another anonymous source reported, “we’ll have to take it out of David Goode’s salary.  That’s the second largest item in our budget.”

David Goode, often referred to in local sports columns as “No-Good Goode”, was unavailable for comment.  He was busy perfecting his .111 batting average.  At his current pace, Goode projects to finish with 54 hits this season, which figures out to roughly $222,222.22 per hit.  With that kind of money riding on each swing, Goode needs lots of practice.  It is, however, gratifying to fans to know that, should he unexpectedly get hot at the plate – that is, should Goode get good – and finish with a .300 batting average, each hit would have cost the team only $84,000.00.  A bargain!

Meanwhile, the search for the missing Swanfeld continues.  Border patrol along the Arizona-Mexico border, as well as international airlines, is on the lookout for a thirty-five-year-old white man, about six feet tall, with a dark moustache and thick glasses.  Anyone with leads to his whereabouts should contact the Yuma Police at (970) 848-5441.

In Kivalina, the local village police officer is only available part-time, but he has been instructed to greet the daily flights that arrive at the local airport just in case anyone matching Swanfeld’s description tries to sneak into town.  That will keep him busy, since both Bering Air and Era Aviation fly into Kivalena, some days with as many as six flights!  Of course, given the speed gossip travels at in a village of 406, every adult resident has heard about Swanfeld’s disappearance, and there’s little to no chance a stranger can sneak into town.  Especially a white man.  Kivalena’s resident year-round population is 96% Native American.  During the summer, the white population swells with the influx of baseball players.  The 38 members of the Kivalina Bowheads (35 players plus 2 coaches and the manager) increase the local population by 9%, more than tripling the white population.  For Kivalinians, summer’s arrival of white boys to play ball is tantamount to a circus of 300,000 clowns arriving in Los Angeles.

“What else we gonna do?” local resident David Swan said.  “After a few weeks, you tire of watching the whales.”

Bob Swanfeld has no idea what he’s in for if he shows up in Kivalina.  But so far, there’s no signs he’s ever going to show.