River Monsters hold first place(and Black Sox Media room) hostage in exchange for a baseball helmet full of cottage cheese.
The Twin Cities River Monsters take the field for batting practice in Chicago before their upcoming game with the Black Sox. Players stretch, throw, and hit while some corny millenial music with whiney ass singing and no beat is playing in background. Twin Cities is loose and feeling good. Though they lost the first 2 games of the series, they have been playing great baseball in 2052, and as of a few days ago have taken over the top spot in the entire BBA.
Meanwhile, up in the press level, GM Alan Ehlers has broken into the media room. With a swift punch to the nose while muttering the words, "this shit wouldn't be happening if baseball still had organists", The Twin Cities GM knocked out the Blacksoxs DJ and took over the controls. He immediately turns off the music and turns on the park mic.
"Mic check one two...one two thee four...check, check...hubba, hubba...hey ya, hey ya.. check check. Alright party people. Enough is enough with this garbage. Like the BBA, I'm taking over. Here is a throw back, to back in the day when music.. and baseball for that matter, wasn't boring as f*ck and didn't suck. I'm talking about the late 90's baby. Back when RBI's mattered, there were no pitch counts, stolen bases and bunts were a thing, no infield shifts and best of all, you could tell how many homers a player would hit by counting the acne spores on his back."
With that, the phone rings in the media room...
Ehlers: Congratulations... you're caller number 69, you're going to see Skid Row AKA the Nashville Bluebirds down at the Wechoke Colosseum this Monday night. Unfortunately the opening act...Helmut had to cancel due to injuries.
Assistant GM Taqi ZaimukhesL Hey Boomer, Would you turn down that music and get down here.
Ehlers: Mom... is that you? I hate to break the news to you, but that meatloaf ain't worth coming down for. "A" for effort though.
Taqi: No you jackass, it's me Taqi. You're assistant GM/babysitter. You are embarrassing the franchise.
Ehlers: Embarassing the franchise... embarrassing the franchise? You do realize that I took on one of, if not the worst dumpster fire of a franchise that was winning 40, 45 games a year, was left for dead with no major league players, barely a farm system in what was considered to be the best division in all of baseball. And in just 35 months, I've turned them into the gold standard of the BBA.
Now excuse me for a second. I'm about to go live... Welcome back everyone. The time is 5:23 and batting practice is just heating up. Stepping in the box right now is Diesel Dave and last year nobody was hotter then him. Hey Diesel, here is a shout out to you. It's from the band Smash mouth.. hey now, you're an All Star, get your dingers on, go deeeeeep.
Taqi: Gold standard? It's not even the all star break yet. Don't you think it's a little early to be celebrating? And it's not like we are a model franchise. We are well over budget....
Ehlers: Contrary to what losing GM's will tell you. This is not a financial sim. This is about winning Landis Titles... or whatever the kids are calling it these days. If we win it all this year, it goes down in the history books. If a couple of years from now we need to reboot and cut payroll to recoup profits, so be it. I could give two craps about sustained mediocrity. If you ain't first, you may as well be last in my book. And I have no shame in losing when this run, runs it's course.
Taqi: We have no prospects...
Ehlers: Prospects? In case you haven't noticed by now... I am not a prospect hugger. What good is a 5 star 19 year old when you are trying to win now? Look, we could have easily had 4 of the top 5 prospects in the league now if we went that route. We could have held on to Bouton and Harrington. We probably would have drafted Morales over Ramos and LOL over Stone if we were still on a 5 year plan. But a big part of winning is knowing your surroundings. Look how many teams took a step back this season.
Welcome back everyone. Let's hit up the request line for the next jam. Caller what is your name and where are from?
Caller: Felix Ramos from Glendora California
Ehlers: What song gets you pumped up Felix?
Caller: Walk by Pantera. That song is basically my life.
Ehlers: Ball three... Ball four.... Walk.... Taaake you baaase!
Taqi: What about all those bad trades you made? Gold standard teams don't make bad trades.
Ehlers: Sure, most look bad when we make them. That is the whole point of trading. Sell high, buy low. If you straight up rape someone in a trade, they never want to trade with you again. If you slow burn them, then you can get 2-3 more trades that they feel great about before realizing that they shouldn't trade with you. Heck, sometimes we lose small trades on purpose to win bigger ones down the road.
All of a sudden there is banging on the door
Security: open up, this is security!
Ehlers: umm, how about no?
Security: You are not supposed to be up here.
Ehlers: That's what every team in the BBA is saying right now. Like it or not, we are here to stay. I don't want cash, I don't want recognition, I don't want a 20 year run with nothing to show for it. All I want is to win the Brewster. Oh, and maybe a baseball helmet full of cottage cheese too.
