Casinotes 54.2- Undercover Agent

[chicoruiz]

Well, I’d seen some pretty strange specimens walk though my office door since I’d been in the baseball business, but the gentleman who had just entered had to rate near the top on the oddness scale. Scrawny, gap-toothed, sunken-eyed, ashen-complected- let’s just say he was not the usual specimen one encountered around a baseball team.

“Mr. Ruiz, I’m Wozniak…Lenny Wozniak. Nice to meet you”, he said.

“Likewise, I’m sure…So what can I do for you, Mr. Wozniak?”

“Well, it’s more in the way of what I can do for you. You see, I’m a private detective. Your owner, Mr. Bleeker, hired me to go undercover to try to find out why your team has gotten off to such a horrible start.”

“Well, why didn’t I know anything about this?”

“Well sir, Mr. Bleeker said something about you not being able to keep your mouth shut- no offense… Anyway, for the last month or so I’ve been posing as a minor league prospect, up here to get evaluated by the staff.”

I looked again at his scrawny frame and concave chest. “You’ve been passing yourself off as a player???”

He shrugged modestly. “I’m kind of a master of disguise.”

“But I mean… Can you actually play baseball?”

“Well, not to put too fine a point on it but…no. I made the excuse for a long time that I had a nasty rash that prevented me from playing. But this week, they kind of forced me to take fielding practice, and they noticed my bad habit of screaming like a little girl and running the other way whenever a ball was hit in my direction.”

I sighed. “So I can Imagine that was the end of your masquerade. So what can you tell me about why the team has been so awful?”

“If I had to guess, Mr. Ruiz, I’d say it was the Brass Mule parties.”

“And what, exactly, are the Brass Mule parties?”

“Well, the Brass Mule is one of the lesser casinos here in Atlantic City. They made a deal with the players that they’d do some endorsements and public appearances after they made the playoff two years in a row. In return, the players get a private party room twice a week, and an allowance of money to be spent however they wish.”

“And that would include lots of alcohol?”

“Yes sir… I went with them once and tried to keep up with them, and I woke up in a holding cell with my pants on my top half and my hoodie on my bottom half.”

“And chorus girls?”

“I never actually saw them perform as a chorus, and a couple of them may or may not have been girls in the strict biological sense, but, yes.”

“Anything else I should know about?”

“Ummm… there may have been farm animals involved at one particular party, but I can’t be sure… I was hallucinating pretty badly that night.”

I took another deep breath. “Okay, Mr. Wozniak, I’ll see that that little operation gets shut down. Thanks for your help. I hope you’ll be able to find another job real soon.”

“Well, I’m pretty much booked up at he Brass Mule for the next month or so. Mr. Bleeker arranged for me to work there to compensate for all the breakage that the team was responsible for.”

It was good to know my team could still do damage to something, even if it wasn’t a baseball…

[Dington]

That’s some motivation to keep winning. Do better guys.

[chicoruiz]

The character of "Lenny Wozniak" is something I stole from somewhere else. Wondering if anyone can identify where he came from...

[Jwalk100]

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak's crazy brother?

[Trebro]

Great story!

[chicoruiz]

The “Lenny Wozniak” character appeared on several episodes of “30 Rock”, played by Steve Buscemi. That’s what I had in mind when I wrote this…

[Dington]

The “Lenny Wozniak” character appeared on several episodes of “30 Rock”, played by Steve Buscemi. That’s what I had in mind when I wrote this…

Ahh, I didn't pick that up. Fantastic show.