"I'll never understand why ballpark concessions can charge four dollars for a hot dog," Sebastian muttered to himself as he returned to his seat. The irony that Sebastian, the richest man in the city, would complain about the price of a hot dog was of course lost on Sebastian, as well as on the fifteen paramilitary officers who escorted him through the stadium, guns waving threateningly. The security was a precaution, of course, based on the wiretap information, as well as on the shreds of secret data wrenched painfully from Miguel Sandoval in the church basement the previous night. But Sebastian, powerful and arrogant as he was, still was not prepared for the sight that greeted him as he rounded the corner of Section 145-A.

Sitting there, in row 7, seat 5, was none other than Jay Nilmanson, the man he had been searching for all these years. Nilmanson jumped up from his seat and started running away. The officers took chase as Sebastian shouted, "He knows the secret as well. You have to take him alive!"

http://www.kenkosowan.fotopic.net
The secret.... oh the secret that had consumed Sebastian for so long. Only he, Kenny Williams and Mike Sirotka knew of it..... many lost their jobs because of it..... no one else could know.

Williams had made sure of that; hadn't he?

"Damn Steinbrenner," thought Sebastian, glaring at Nilmanson with a look that could only be described as

...pouty. Sebastian, when glaring, had no choice but to appear pouty for Sebastian had huge, sausage sized lips. He was an embarrassingly ugly man; no question he surrounded himself with people to enhance his self-image. Generally, though, they were people who wanted something, or who were paid to be there, like the posse for former ballplayers turned paramilitary officers he had surrounding him. Kenny and Mike expertly led the posse and back at Sebastian's vast home was Derek Bell, who couldn't quite make the troop but was a fine cook, taking pride in the mess he set out for the boys. "Three squares and a smile," he would proudly proclaim when asked about his new position in life.

No one made fun Sebastian's lips anymore, at least not to his face.

Nilmanson didn't get far before he was wrestled to the ground by Ruben Rivera, who promptly removed all weapons from Nilmanson's person, including his shoes and fine gold watch.

Before a crowd gathered, Sebastian and his posse decided to depart for their secret bunker, where a kidnapped woman and some sadistic torture devices awaited.

One of the posse, however, had other ideas. One of the posse worked for the good guys. And one of the posse had to reveal himself sooner than later...

... ah, hell. Later's fine.

Rivera, whose weapons removal and shoe check skills had developed recently in his new job in airport security, radioed for help. It wasn't long before The Chief arrived.

Not one of the good guys, no most assuredly not, thought the unrevealed good guy mentioned just a few sentences back. This was none other than the Rock.

"Rocker. John Rocker," snarled the uninformed, er, uniformed swagger-in-a-suit. True, he wasn't so Brave any more, and definitely not an Indian, but most assuredly, he was The Chief.

"If he's here, maybe I'd better reveal myself after all," thought ...

...ducking into a nearby phone booth, changing quickly from his street clothes into his grease-stained Tampa Bay Devil Rays uniform, green domino, and matching orange cape.

In a flash, he had transformed himself into the most feared crime-fighting superhero the game had ever known.

CLOSER-MAN!

On the field, Tony LaRussa stopped between bites of his tofu bratwurst, gasped, and nearly choked himself as he exclaimed, "It's a birdbrain! I mean, a planetrain! Plantain?"

"No, wait! CLOSER-MAN! The main with the Magic Closer Dust! Isringhausen, get over here! And bring Eldred with you! And Mike Crudale!"

The Cardinals bullpen stirred with a fury of action as the players milled around, looking for the exit. They were just about to find the open door when...

...they heard a loud wail from the stands. It was Sebastian, sounding as if he had been tortured for weeks.

"I cannot take it any more. I have riches that I cannot spend, but my soul is void. My secret imprisons me, but now I must free. Tony, Tony, listen to me, you must..."

Sebastian collapsed. Chris Carpenter leaped into the stands from the bullpen and rushed to Sebastian's side, hoping to hear a few whispered words. Just then a ball whizzed straight at Carpenter...

Chris Carpenter fielded the ball with a quick step to his left, turned in a poised manner and reached back to throw the ball at our "Good Guy". In the middle of his wind-up he collapsed to the ground, the look on his face indicating that he had clearly torn his....

...pants. Suddenly, Carpenter felt oddly like Steve Lyons, and quickly retreated into the bowels of Busch Stadium to seek out the equipment manager. Little did Carpenter know that his search for a pair of the classically plain white pants the Cardinals had always worn -- that fit, mind you -- would involve an unsuccessful bribe of Joe Buck, a right cross to the jaw from Reggie Sanders (who proved most reluctant to immediately part with his pants), and bad news from Dr. Frank Jobe, who informed the unlucky Carpenter that he had not only torn his pants, but his labrum, in his vain attempts to parry the assault of Closer-Man.

For his part, Closer-Man was firing erratic (yet strangely hittable) fastballs at every woman, child, person of colour and visibly disabled fan he could find. The steroid-induced whirlwind only came to a halt when his most hated nemesis came nervously jogging in from the visiting club's bullpen: The Senryu Stopper.

"Sass-aki?" screamed Closer-Man. "I thought we threw your forkball-throwing ass back to China, or wherever the hell you came from!"

In response, the Senryu Stopper stared at Closer-Man for what seemed like an eternity. Then, choosing his words carefully and speaking in his trademark haiku-like meter, the Senryu Stopper calmly declared...

“Closer-Man? A joke
The Senryu Stopper will win
Get me my Rolaids”

After that great prose all that Closer-Man could do was…..

...attempt to stammer out a tasteless pun about Rolaids. Fortuitously, he was stopped when a perfectly-manicured hand grasped his left arm. He turned to look down into the leathered face of LaRussa.

"Sorry, kid," Larussa said emotionlessly "Sasaki's a righty. I've got to pull you. Julian "The Vulture" Tavarez can take over. He gives us the platoon advantage, and is just as capable of making bigoted remarks as you are."

The Vulture swooped into the stands on bright red wings, a sullen look upon his face. The look remained on his face even as he crash landed upon the prone Sebastian.

As Larussa rolled his eyes and bemoaned the lack of landing practice his team had worked on during Spring Training...

... after the untimely death of visiting pitching coach Phil "The Vulture" Regan, who had been mysteriously murdered mere hours before Tavarez announced his new nickname.

"Sounds too much like a bad baseball movie starring Wesley Snipes as a slugger obsessed with his uniform number," mused LaRussa. Suddenly, after years of skippering, the thought struck Tony Manager.

"Jesus Colome! I'm a lawyer! I can just ..."

"...embroil myself in a series of protracted lawsuits and live like a king on my own contingency fees!"

So as Tony walked off the field into the sunset, grooming hisnails and preparing to slap a writ on himself, Closer-Man strode back to the pitcher's mound, ready to reassert his domination.

But LaRussa's disappearance had meant his evil reign of terror and repression has disappeared with him, and a new hero was finally able to come back to town.

Stubby Clapp was free, and hustling into the on-deck circle.

"This one's for you, Tony," said The Diminuitive One, "remember how you had me locked away in Memphis all those years? Remember David Howard? Remember Craig Paquette? Shawon Dunston at short? It's payback time, Tony. I rotted in that jail while you lived high on the hog. Now's my time"

He stared out at Closer-Man, whose beady eyes stared back through the forest green mask.

Suddenly, all went dark. At the local power substation, a rolling cackle could be heard coming from behind a locked door saying GRID CONTROL - AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

"Operation Shutdown, Phase Two, has begun!" shouted Derek Bell to the bank of controls, dials, and lights. "No one can stop me now! Unless..."