by Ethan Wardman
Now that one of the franchise icons is no longer a member of the organization, despite being both a BBA and a Yellow Springs Hall of Famer, people are talking in the back office of the Nine organization and one of them has revealed to me a bombshell:
Lien-ying Thum, currently withering away in Alamogordo, is in fact the son of Dong-po Thum!
Lien-ying, signed back in January 2059 for $250,000, was announced by GM Rob McMonigal as being the cousin of Dong-po, despite some suspicions at the time there may be a closer connection. I pressed this with McMonigal and Thum at the time and both came back with flat denials.
Those denials, my friends, were a lie.
I'll wait for the shock to subside. I know McMonigal lying to you never happens, right?
Well, now I have proof, provided to me by an anonymous source who is no longer with the organization, who is terrified at the retribution of McMonigal and owner Bo Jordan.
I, however, am a fearless journalist who only answers to you, my friends. So I'm going to give it to you straight. My bosses know that you demand the facts and that's why you get them from me. I'm sure the paper will receive a threat of a lawsuit, but we've been there before. We'll be there again. The truth is what matters.
Now I realize you want proof, and we do have it a copy of the birth certificate. It's missing some details but I am assured by our correspondents in Asia that it is legitimate as an unofficial copy. I've printed it here for you to judge for yourself. It's at the end of my article. I for one am completely convinced. Clearly, at some point a different birth certificate was created. But why?
Now you may be thinking about the date and trying to blame Ron Collins, since the younger Thum would have been born while the Nine were being run by his staff. Perhaps this was the thing that cursed this team to never win a Monty Brewster award during his run? No, my friends. I am assured that Mr. Collins, who is beyond reproach, would never have had anything to do with this. Collins, who is known to help old ladies across the street to go to the ballpark, donates part of his salary to animal shelters, and is one of the few general managers to employ multiple women on his staff, would never hide a birth.
It's clear what happened. McMonigal, who didn't want anyone to think he was so desperate for another win that he'd reached for a Thum who just didn't have talent, bribed the family into denying who the father is. Meanwhile, he threatened Dong-Po with being kept out of the Hall of Fame and offered him a job to keep him quiet.
Preposterous, you say? Flimsy evidence and speculation?
That's what I'm sure McMonigal will tell you. But he's wrong.
I'm sure those who defend McMonigal will tell you the vast number of things wrong with this whole thing, starting with the collaboration of the Thum family, moving on to why this didn't come out before now, and ending with the fact that this birth certificate doesn't look official.
Well, who are you going to believe? McMonigal, the guy who hasn't won anything in his life, or me, who works for a reputable newspaper?
The answer, my friends, is crystal clear.
But now we must turn to Bo Jordan. There's only two options here: Either Jordan was complicit in the cover-up, making him just as despicable as his General Manager, or he's completely unaware of what's going on with the day to day operations of the team.
Neither answer is a good one for this team. Perhaps Jordan is reaching a point in his life where he cannot keep up with owning a franchise? It's so sad that this is the best case scenario, as his involvement in forcing a young man to lie to the public and to threaten the post-playing career of a legend is just too monstrous to think about.
But now it's on the table. Because the truth is out there. It's here, in print.
And if Jordan doesn't fire McMonigal now, it's clear which of the two answers is true.
So perhaps for the final time, I ask:
GOOD GRIEF, BO! How much longer can this go on?
