ISSUE 28

“Dan Wilson” took the podium as the final press conference of spring training was finally here. “Dan” looked tired, but excited about the upcoming season.

The moment he took the podium, a squat, balding, energetic reporter stood up and took a chewed-on little pencil from his ear as he flipped open his narrow reporter’s notebook with the practiced air of a savvy veteran of sports journalism. He licked the tip of the pencil out of habit and started to speak, in a machine gun-like nasally voice, “Now look here, Mr. Wil—“

Then suddenly, a whoosh of lightning-looking sparkles surrounded him and he was sent back to the year 1947, resuming his regular job as a crack beat reporter for the Boston Braves.

Then a second reporter stood up and pointed an iPhone 15 at the Mariners’ manager. He or she was diverse in some way. “Coach Wilson, how do you feel about the team heading into Opening Day?”

Jerry looked down thoughtfully for a moment, deep in thought, and finally said, “You know, I’m really glad you asked that. That’s a very good question, and thank you for bringing it up. I humbly honor and appreciate your ability to be so much of the insightful in the asking of the questions. You are certainly a credit to your identity group, or groups, whichever they may or may not be. And your question has really got me to thinking. As I stand here, I think the best way for me to break it down, in as honest and transparent a way as possible, is to state unequivocally - and I say this fully aware that it may bring some controversy to the Mariner organization and its fans, the best fans in baseball, in case I haven’t gotten that in yet. But anyway, I’ll answer your impressively incisive question this way. I guess at the end of the day, when all is said and done, when it comes right down to it, in a manner of speaking unless I’m way off base here and not going out on a limb, is we're just taking it one day at a time. You know what I mean by that? The guys have been working hard all spring, putting in the reps, and now it’s about carrying that over into the regular season. Does that make any sense? I hope I’m being clear here, because you deserve it, you and whichever noble group or groups you belong to or not. Oh, and before I forget, I’d like us to take a moment of silence in honor of all the people who have died within a 45 mile radius of this spot within the last 325 years, who’s deaths might have happened sooner than they ought to have. Let’s all bow our heads now and be silent for 3 and a half minutes for all those folks, which I know they’d appreciate. Ready, annnnnnd….go.” All heads bowed.

Two and a half minutes later….

The coach solemnly realized he had forgotten to set his timer, so he didn’t know if three and a half minutes was up yet. He decided to go for it now. He raised his head and said, “OK, next question?” He looked around and then pointed to a reporter in the second row, because it looked like the reporter was wearing a funny t-shirt but the coach couldn’t see all of it because the reporter was sitting behind someone who was blocking it, and the coach wanted him to stand up so he could see the whole thing.

The reporter stood up. “Coach Wilson, are there any specific areas of concern as you head into the season?”

The shirt wasn’t funny after all. “Look, baseball is a game of adjustments. Every team has things they can improve on, but at the end of the day, it’s about execution. We just need to go out there, play our game, and control what we can control.”

“How do you feel about your pitching staff?”

“I like our arms. We’ve got some guys who can really compete, and it’s all about throwing strikes and keeping hitters off balance. If our starters can go deep into games and—“

Coach Smear’s phone buzzed and he glanced down at it. His brow furrowed. “Uh… could you all please excuse me? I’ve got to read this email.” He picked up the phone and looked deeply into it as his phone unlocked via face recognition, not that that is important. Then he flicked his fingers a few times, and that very same face used to unlock the phone suddenly looked a little concerned - perhaps even somewhat concerned!

He looked up at the crowd before him, now a little flustered. “Uh… press conference is over. I, uh… have to pee. Really bad. Bye.”

He ran off the stage quite fastly. The reporters all stood dumbfounded and looked around at each other. Words such as “Wha--”, “well I never”, and “as I live and breathe” were probably uttered. One reporter was kind of full of himself because he happened to know that the coach’s excuse of having to pee was a bald-faced lie.

“Why… he peed right before he came onstage! I saw him in the men’s room! I— I swear I did!”, crowed the full-of-himself reporter. “What are the chances that he would have to pee again so soon?”

Not very good, most people agreed right then and there. What, then, was the matter with Coach Wilson? One of the fluorescent lights winked out. Everybody sort of freaked like it wasn’t a coincidence, which it actually was.

Jerry raced down the sterile corporate hallway and ducked into a room connected to it by a door, with a knob which he rotated to open. In the privacy of this room, he could read the entirety of the email.

Coach Wilson, though I know that is not your real name. I have something you might be extremely interested in. I don’t want to tell you the whole thing in an email, but let’s just say — ok so this cryptic pun isn’t the best, I’ll be first to admit, but anyway, let’s just say, I hope the M’s can clone their success from last September… wink wink… Contact me at your earliest convenience, or at the very least, at any one of your next two or three conveniences. And go M’s!

With the fondest of blessings upon your spirit and unwavering esteem always,

- Ken Michaels

Who is Ken Michaels?? Jerry asked himself, though really only mouthing the word “who”.

And… what does he know about cloning? W-Man was right. My old life IS coming back to torment me, and just as I embark on my first full season as the skipper of the Mariners!

This was all he needed, he thought. At least he knew he had totally nailed his first ever inclusive speech as the Mariners manager. The front office told him he had to be better about that, so he had practiced all night, and was proud that it had gone so smoothly.

In a daze, he left the room and walked out of the building into the bright sunshine of the Arizona spring, where cacti bloomed and cowboys on horseback tipped their hat to him while Injun braves sat around a teepee smoking peace pipes. He had a foreboding sense of foreboding, that his old outer space future life was going to come back and ruin his team’s chances of making the postseason. Just when Matt Brash gets healthy, this happens.

He immediately began devising exactly how he should respond to this Mr. Michaels. He finally came up with the following:

Dear Mr. Michaels,

Hi, how are you? I’m fine. By the way, I was just wondering who you were or whatever. If you want to meet me, come to the parking lot next to where that sandwich shop used to be, right up from the corner where Denny’s was, and across from that fire station that got remodeled a couple years ago. Meet me at midnight tonight! No wait, can we make it tomorrow, I’ve got a thing. So midnight tomorrow night!

- Dan Wilson (real name)

He hit Send on some Internet device, like a phone or a tablet or whatever. Then he walked forlornly back into the Peoria locker room one last time. Had some good times here, yes indeedy do. Then he made a little gesture with his raised hand, but it wasn’t a thumbs-up exactly, or a wave, because I don’t think he really thought enough about what the gesture would be as his arm started to go up, he just got this instinct that there ought to be some fond farewell-type thing he did with his hand, and then it turned out to be kind of an awkward, half-thumbs-up, half-wave, salute sort of gesture and the pinky finger got a little involved somehow, and it was just this weird thing he did. It looked totally stupid, he knew, and he was really glad no one was there to see it. Kind of ruined the moment though. Then he left.