Twenty-Five Eds

This silly thing is a sequel to my old silly thing, Twenty-Five Shortstops and is simulated using the Out of the Park Baseball series, the latest of which (19) is out on all of the things that games can be out on. Unfortunately, I am a miserly bitch and only have 18, which is why the MLB rosters are actually from the 2017 season, but for the purposes of this piece it should matter very very little.

Prologue:

After my last foray into baseball general managing ended in a somewhat disappointing 0-162 season, I left the sport disgraced. I drifted around after that; briefly serving as pirate queen of the north, but ultimately I spent my days studying temporal witchery. How I learned this is an interesting story, as most stories involving temporal witchery are, but this is neither the place nor time for such a thing. Using spells found both within and without the Ephemeral Grimoire of Space-Time, I deleted my season of baseball GM-ing from the universal conscious.

Why? You ask for purposes of this paragraph. Well, it all started with a chance meeting with a shady agent of underground enterprise. This man(?) hidden within the shadows of the far corner of my local Dairy Queen offered me a vast sum of spacecash to revolutionize team-building in baseball. To introduce the concept of Twenty-Five Eds. Her(?) voice sounded a lot like me pretending to be a shady and masculine dude so I suspected there was a more interesting story behind this meeting (again, temporal witchery is rarely mundane) but these mysteries reveal too much to be posted so haphazardly upon these pages.

I agreed to the deal, naturally, and within hours the news of Derek Falvey and Thad Levine’s mysterious disappearances broke. Generally when people vanish I feel somewhat concerned, but hey! This meant I might actually get payed money to run a baseball team poorly again. Sacrifices had to be made. My meeting with the Pohlads was set up within weeks. One of their advisors asked me for my thoughts on WAR. I replied that I had played a lot of Dynasty Warriors and knew all of the tactics of war, such as “Pretend to defect” and “Somehow use wind magic even though this is supposed to be an historical setting.” Past/Future/Alternate Tawny must have had some kind of hold on the Pohlads, for I got the job right then and there. I bet she has a cool scar or something, I should get one of those.

When the news of my hiring broke, many news-persons wished to interview me. Apparently I was the first female GM in (revised) history. When I kept ignoring questions and asking them if they knew any players named Ed, the press-room eventually got really quiet and I just kinda meandered out of it. Oh well, I figured you could probably look up baseball rosters on Google. Maybe even Ask Jeeves.

Meeting with Mauer:

I met with Joe Mauer today. While Escobar and Rosario are well liked, I felt I could really win the fans onto my side by getting Mauer to support my new process. He was very polite listening to my presentation.

-Artists Rendering of The Plan-

With a nod and an “okey dokey” he agreed to my proposal. He promised to change his name to “Ed” by spring training. Even said his twin daughters Emily and Maren would become Edette and Edy. His wife, Maddie, which is already so close anyway, wasn’t so hot to join the Ed train. She refused, claiming the whole concept sounded like “a bad parody written by some weirdo on the internet.” She stormed out of my office in a huff when I banned her for life. We need team players here, lady! Joe protested somewhat, but I offered him a glass of milk with one (1) squirt of Hershey’s chocolate syrup mixed in. After nervously checking the room to make sure his parents weren’t around to see him, he picked up the chocolaty drink and gulped it down in seconds, seeming to revel in the sinfulness of the treat.

“Joe isn’t always a good boy.” he whispered to himself, mustachioed by the milk. I smirked, for Edward Mauer was firmly under my control.

The Flurry of Transactions:

• Promoted Bullpen Coach Eddie Guardado to literally every coaching position.
• Traded RP Brandon Kintzler, 3B Miguel Sano and RF Akil Baddoo to Boston for SP Eduardo Rodriguez and RP Edgar Olmos
• Traded CF Byron Buxton, SP Kyle Gibson, and 1B Byung-ho Park to Miami for SP Edinson Volquez
• Traded SP Ervin Santana and C John Ryan James Smith Joe Marie Murphy to San Fransico for SS Eduardo Nunez
• Traded RP Nick Burdi, RP Michael Tonkin and SS Nick Gordon to Seattle for RP Edwin Diaz
• Traded RF Max Kepler to Chicago (AL) for 2B Eddy Alvarez and SP Edixon Arias
• Traded 2B Brian Dozier to Detroit for RP Edward Mujica and RP Eduardo Jiminez
• Traded SS Jorge Polanco to Houston for SP Edinson Frias
• Promoted RF Edgar Corcino from AA Chattanooga to MLB
• Promoted SP Eduardo Del Rosario from A Cedar Rapids to MLB
• Traded SP Adalberto Mejia and RP Trevor Hildenberger to Chicago (NL) for SP Eddy Butler and RF Eddy Martinez
• Traded OF(?) Robbie Grossman and SS Engelb Vielma to Texas for SP Eddie Gamboa and 1B Eduard Pinto

-E-mail from the front office-

• Traded SP Jose Berrios to Pittsburgh for 1B Edwin Espinal, RP Eduardo Vera and RP Edgar Santana
• Traded RP Randy Rosario and RF Daniel Palka to Los Angeles (NL) for 3B Edwin Rios
• Traded SP Kyle Gibson to Oakland for 3B Edwin Diaz
• Traded 3B Niko Goodrum and C Mitch Garver to Washington for SS Edwin Lora
• Traded 1B Kennys Vargas to St. Louis for SS Edmundo Sosa
• Released or demoted all Non-Eds.

Spring Training:

-Excerpt from press conference.-

Reporter: Ms Jarvi, are you at all confident in this team.

Tawny: Eduardo Escobar is our starting Catcher. Why wouldn’t I be confident?

Reporter: Is that a joke?

Tawny: *Stares in silence* Next Question.

Reporter 2: Most of the Eds were pulled from various A level teams. How do you think that is going to work out for the team?

Tawny: Damn right, I’m older than most of these guys and, look at this pretty face, paragon of youth right here.

Reporter 2: Right...

Tawny: Next question, please.

Reporter 2: That didn’t..

Tawny: NEXT QUESTION!

Reporter 3: How is morale during the first workouts of spring? Does the team think they have a chance to win?

Tawny: Morale is amazing! Most of these Eds were going to be career minor leaguers and now they are in the majors getting payed that sweet sweet MLB minimum. I’m the best thing to happen to the Eds, honestly. If the game causes stress, well, now they have insurance and can go to therapy. I’m the best thing to happen to sports therapists, honestly.

Reporter 3: Thank you Ms. Jarvi.

Tawny: You are super fuckin’ welcome, sir.

Reporter 4: Back to the morale thing. How are the players getting along? Isn’t there confusion when everyone is Ed?

Tawny: Did you see this year’s Eduardo Escobar Name Game? He got like 20% right! That’s a new record. Does that answer your question?

Reporter 4: No, but thanks.

Tawny: No problem. Who’s next?

Reporter 2: No really though. This is lunacy.

Tawny: Conference over! Who wants free Go-gurt!

Reporters in unison: WE DO!

Opening Day Roster:

All-Star Break:

-Excerpt from ESPN article-

“I don’t know what the fuck this is.” Said All-Star Eduardo Nunez in an interview with ESPN. “Bitch is crazy.” His candid words were echoed by Twins fans everywhere who were sick of a team that had given up 222 more runs than it had scored. Ms. Jarvi was unable to be reached for comment, and hadn’t been seen in public for some time.

Season’s End:

Well! That didn’t work out the way I had hoped. Sometimes you try something weird, like throwing all your fielders on the right side of the field, and you revolutionize baseball. Sometimes you try something weird, like making sure every player is named Ed, and you lose 118 games. This is how progress is made, people. Now we know.

I got fired pretty quickly after the season. Apparently other Tawny’s hold over the owners wasn’t strong enough to put up with a second season of me. Oh well. I’m rich now, and that’s what counts!

Epilogue:

It was raining the night I next encountered the other me. She stepped out from the shadows while I was walking home from the gas station to buy rice krispy treats and I pretended to be surprised.

“You do have a scar!” I exclaimed, looking at the rad face scar that seemed to be tearing down from her right eye. Other Tawny seemed very proud of this fact.

“I figured you’d have an idea of who I was.” She replied as the rain pelted my shoulders as if they were little blobs of tension. “We were always very smart.”

“Yes.” I agreed. “Yes.”

It was then I felt the knife entering my heart. There was a sickening moment that felt like reality’s film reel was missing a frame, my mind and body eventually caught up and the pain began to outpace the confusion. I looked up at me, finding it hard to believe that I would betray me, mostly because I would know that I would then have to write this sentence about me betraying myself and we both would have had to of known it would be an absolute mess.

New me, or perhaps I should simply say “I,” disposed of the body like she had done so many times before.

“It had to be done.” I muttered to myself. “One day....I’ll understand? Man, screw time travel.”