May 4, 2045
by Banjo Jackson
Nashville, TN
With a record of 15-14, the Nashville Bluebirds sit in sixth place in the competitive Heartland division. Although the season is young, climbing out of a hole will be difficult. Preseason predictions saw Nashville winning 90+ games, so what’s going wrong? It seems the Bluebirds’ bat have yet to wake up in 2045. Alberto Rodríguez has been the lone bright spot in April, but even he has slowed down as we entered May. Let’s look at the performances of the Nashville batter this season and their .704 team OPS, good for 4th to last place in the Frick League.
| PoS Hitter | OPS |
|---|---|
| Alberto Rodríguez | 0.9843 |
| Martín 'Duck' Marín | 0.8638 |
| Jesús Yan | 0.848 |
| Jaime Geerdinkck | 0.8344 |
| Tony Frost | 0.8201 |
| Gipper Kengos | 0.7802 |
| Pedro Mendoza | 0.7619 |
| Nacho Méndez | 0.6748 |
| Pedro Hernandez | 0.6681 |
| Reynante Alvero | 0.5821 |
| Bobby Parker | 0.5793 |
| Robert Franklin | 0.5484 |
| Kidane Ata | 0.5134 |
| Ernesto Sousa | 0.489 |
There are clearly some underperformers, but most notably, Kidane Ata. The star centerfielder had a .836 OPS in 2044 and .852 OPS in 2043, but has yet to find his stroke in 2045. Ernesto Sousa hasn’t been able to hit a baseball since June of last year and is a prime candidate to be replaced despite his tools.
“It’s been a frustrating season at the plate for us and we need to find a solution, however, I think we were all a bit perplexed when we heard the front office’s plan,” said Rodriguez. “It’s definitely unconventional.”
After talking to a few other Bluebirds, it seems that GM Chad Nason had brought in a witch doctor to perform a cleansing of the bats. It smelled like waffles, but once the smoke settled from the burning maple leaves, I found the source of the smell at the hands of a curandero named Pablo Cerrano, whose father, Pedro has a history of voodoo and baseball. “One must remove the demons from these bats,” said Cerrano while lighting another pile of maple leaves on fire. “The only way to restore these bats to glory is from within the bats themselves, extracting the demons out of the bats and back into darkness.”
After the smoke settled, Bluebirds players warily retrieved their bats from the grill above the maple leaf fire.
“We gotta try anything we can right now,” said Nason. “I know it seems a little unorthodox, but we will see if it creates a placebo effect on these guys. If they think it works and they start hitting, it’ll save me the trouble of having to try and find replacements.”
I suppose the true test will come tonight as they face the reigning Frick League champion Long Beach Surfers and their ace, Danya Tchekanov. If all goes well, Cerrano can expect calls from around the league and has already been rumored to be on a flight to Chicago.
