Owner: 'My manager locked me in a cage'

(7/23/08) - TAMPA (ESPN) -- Tampa Bay Plunkers owner Bill Levesque stunned the baseball world today when he accused manager Ted Williams of locking him in a cage that the hitting great kept in his basement.

At a press conference, Levesque told reporters that Williams' actions had violated the "no abduction" clause in his contract.

Levesque said the clause states that the terms of the pact are void in the event the owner is "chained, handcuffed and forced to make silly noises while a Hall of Fame left-hander attempts to navigate an unlubricated broom handle into said owner's lower-intestine."

Police have released no details about Levesque's escape from the makeshift dungeon they said Williams had constructed in his basement. They arrested Williams and charged him with kidnapping and possession of unlicensed clown paraphernalia, both charges punishable by life in prison.

"I'm just disgusted," said Tampa police chief Mace Coffin. "I want to note for the record that Mr. Williams is not a clown and has never been a clown. These clown implements were found in plain view, wrapped in tinfoil and ready to be distributed to bat boys at Plunker Field. None of the unholy acts Mr. Williams performed on Mr. Levesque's buttered torso can account for the piles and piles of clown gear distributed throughout his home."

Levesque was found naked and dazed Tuesday night wandering a Tampa neighborhood by police officers responding to a call that an obese gnome had accosted several nuns. It turned out that the nuns had actually accosted an obese gnome, which is legal in Florida and certain uninhabited portions of Alabama. Upon returning to the station, officers ran across the wandering Levesque, who said Williams kept him cage for a month.

Several owners in the Diamond Mind Baseball League had filed a missing persons reports in recent weeks when Levesque failed to respond to e-mails inviting him to engage in trade negotiations. Police speculate that Williams abducted the owner after he became infatuated with Pat Burrell, whom Levesque swore he would trade after discovering Burrell sleeping with the team mascot.

Levesque said he would hire a new manager as soon as his wounds heal and recurrent nightmares cease.

"I want to assure everyone that I am back in charge," Levesque said. "I will not allow this episode to detract from the fine spirit my Plunker team has shown this year. The actions of a renegade head should not spoil a fantastic season. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to leave immediately so that surgeons can remove this broomstick from my ass."

Slugger's Addiction Tempted by Drugs after Trade Talks Fail

(6/01/08) - TAMPA (AP) -- DMBL league commissioner Yaro Zajac promised swift punishment against Plunkers owner Bill Levesque after a box packed with vials of crack cocaine arrived last Monday at the locker of Marietta Mighty Men slugger Josh Hamilton.

The identity of the person who mailed the crack to Hamilton, a recovering drug addict, may have remained forever unknown save for a stupendous series of blunders by Levesque, whom police described as an "evil mastermind with the IQ of a retarded gerbil."

"Our exhaustive investigation revealed the return address printed in crayon on the box matched the address of Levesque's Tampa villa," said police Sgt. Will Fritz.

Levesque insisted anyone could have forged his return address. But Fritz said Levesque began stuttering uncontrollably and became incontinent when detectives asked him how the head of Plunkers manager Ted Williams made its way into the box with the crack cocaine.

It has been rumored for weeks that Levesque is contemplating firing Williams and mailing his head to a winter league team in Columbia for an undisclosed sum of cash and two tons of coffee beans.

The most-serious charge Levesque faces, police said, would be the unlawful transport of a disembodied head across state lines. But Fritz said he also is contemplating charging Levesque with contributing to the delinquency of a center-fielder through the use of either drugs, alcohol or male prostitutes, a law Georgia legislators enacted last year after intense lobbying by Marietta owner David Landsman, who says he wants to protect Hamilton from all temptations of the flesh.

Landsman said his troubles with Levesque began when the Plunkers owner recently offered a 2009 4th round draft choice and all the tequila Landsman could drink if he shipped Hamilton to Tampa. Landsman said he laughed so uncontrollably and for such a long period of time, doctors were forced to administer a 1,000-volt jolt of electricity to Landsman's frontal lobe to allow him to resume team duties, though a distressing side effect causes sparks to fly from his earlobes at random moments during the middle innings of home games.

Landsman, however, said he did not believe the decapitated horse head he found in his bed upon waking Saturday had any link to the Tampa Plunkers owner.

"That's got something to do with a minor business deal that went a little sour," said Landsman, refusing to elaborate except to announce that Frank Sinatra would soon be signed to a multi-year deal to start at shortstop once the required permits are issued authorizing the exhumation of the crooner's body.

As to Levesque, Landsman said anything short of a lifetime banishment from the league accompanied by the removal of every other finger on Levesque's hands and the dismemberment of a randomly selected Plunkers infielder would send the wrong message to kids who look up to ball players and owners as role models.

"We've got to let our fans know we're not thugs who want to win at any cost," said Landsman, who insisted that he limits his own efforts at winning by the use of precision artillery fire during late-inning rallies by opposing teams. "Folks, we've got to remember this is just a game.

"Don't let the 21 hours a day I spend on my team fool you into thinking I take this game seriously," Landsman continued. "I don't live for baseball. But of course, the voices in my head tell me I must dislodge the commissioner's nose with a dull butter knife if I don't win a championship by 2010."

In the end, Landsman said it appears that Hamilton withstood the temptation to use Levesque's cocaine and remains clean, sober and devoted to his comeback. Landsman said the fact that Hamilton appeared at the plate three times wearing nothing but a jock strap during a recent game against the New Jersey Buddahs was just a sign of a young hitter trying to get comfortable at the plate during a game when temperatures climbed to an unseasonably warm 66 degrees.

Hamilton, lying in a pool of his own vomit prior to Tuesday's game, could not be revived to comment.

Pope to Plunkers: Drop Dead

(4/20/08) - NEW YORK (AP) -- Pope Benedict XVI refused an invitation to hold a mass at Plunker Field and instead held a service for 60,000 fans at Yankee Stadium on Sunday, revealing a bias that Plunkers owner Bill Levesque said he found "regretful."

The Pope wore a Las Vegas Rat Pack baseball cap during much of his service and offered a blessing to team officials gathered at his feet.

Levesque said such "religious interference" threatened the integrity of the league and did much to explain what he called "the inexplicable winning ways" of the Rat Pack early in the season. Levesque noted that in his team's two losses to Las Vegas by a combined 12-run margin, his infield appeared to "part repeatedly like the Red Sea" for balls hit with little velocity.

He said a recent 17-3 thrashing at the hands of the Carolina Mudcats could only be explained via the improper use and exhibition of religious artifacts on game day by opposing players.

"I'm in a league with a bunch of owners from New Jersey," Levesque told reporters. "I'm not making excuses. But it's clear that if the Pope is a Yankee and Rat Pack fan, a bunch of players from Florida don't stand a snowball's chance in hell of making the playoffs."

But unnamed Plunkers sources said team officials were in high-level meetings with someone they would only describe as "the Dark Lord" and noted that it was no coincidence the team ended a six-game skid with a pair of wins Sunday as negotiations neared completion.

"Let's just say that the Pope's not the only game in town," Levesque said, refusing to offer details. "The Force is with you, young Wickstrom. But you are not a Jedi yet."

The commissioner's office said it didn't know what the hell Levesque was talking about and suggested in a statement that the owner "might have recently hit his head and be suffering from concussion-related delusions or, more likely, is exhibiting the aftereffects of psychotropic compounds banned by international decree."

Team says Burrell felled by plague, not smoke

(3/31/08) - TAMPA (AP) -- Tampa Bay Plunkers officials are livid over allegations by the commissioner's office that left-fielder Pat Burrell was sidelined this week by "smoke inhalation" and said a report of his injury in a concession fire was an outlandish exaggeration.

In fact, Plunkers owner Bill Levesque said Burrell is suffering from a rare strain of 24-hour bubonic plague that he likely contracted during the season opener against the Straphangers. Levesque said the Straphanger visitor's clubhouse is a notorious breeding ground for all form of contagion.

"We will take up this erroneous report with the commissioner," Levesque said. "If Pat were conscious, I'm sure it's what he'd want us to do."

League insiders, however, told Sports Illustrated that the drug culture within the Plunkers' clubhouse is out of control and that Burrell lapsed into unconsciousness after inhaling a potent hallucinogenic agent commonly ignited with an industrial blow torch.

To those with expertise, the signs of drug abuse by Burrell have been rampant so far this season. Fans, for example, were somewhat puzzled when Burrell strolled to the plate three times in the season opener without a bat, though Burrell did manage one hit after successfully negotiating a drag bunt using the business end of his forehead.

"Burrell won't be the last Plunker to go down with so-called ‘smoke inhalation,' " an unnamed Hanover division owner said. "Their team mascot should be Jim Morrison."

Burrell was the first draft pick in team history, a selection roundly criticized from Tampa to Vatican City, where Pope Benedict XVI said he prays for Levesque's eternal damnation or, failing that, a lightning strike rendering the controversial owner unable to negotiate a trade without a withering stutter. But Levesque said the Burrell pick will be vindicated when the team makes the playoffs.

"Burrell's on base percentage is exceeded only by the welt on his forehead," Levesque boasted.

Until vindication comes, Levesque said he would refrain from sitting in the owner's box owing to occasional sniper fire from a portion of the right-field bleachers that fan's have dubbed the "Score Book Depository."

Plunkers Fans to Owner: Huh?

(3/10/08) - TAMPA (AP) -- Plunkers fans called for the evisceration of owner Bill Levesque this week after what some baseball watchers described as the worst draft in franchise history.

Bill James speculated that Levesque may be playing for last place in hopes of securing a higher first-round pick in the 2009 draft.

James said the Plunkers draft performance would necessitate a new measurement for his next baseball handbook: Bums Created. He said this would involve a complex formulation whereby a player's On Base Percentage or ERA would be multiplied by the owner's IQ.

The resulting number would then be divided by the number of rookies over the age of 32 that the team had drafted.

"Only then," said James, "can we truly quantify the unquantifiable. If there were any justice in baseball, heads would roll in that dysfunctional organization."

Indeed, they already are.

An irate Ted Williams, the Plunkers' manager, said he repeatedly warned Levesque away from some of his more mystical picks. But Williams said he hadn't realized that the arms he thought he had been frantically waving from Rounds 1 through 10 were, in fact, attached to a torso no longer aligned with his brain.

"At one point the man was asking our scouts if Doug Griffin still had major-league range," Williams said. "Doug Griffin? You can quote me: Levesque's a head case. Let him give me my walking papers. I won't manage this pathetic bunch."

A source within the Plunkers front office, who asked not to be identified for fear his desperate job search might be hindered, revealed that Levesque tried to trade a top team prospect for a higher draft position. But the 11th hour attempt was so misguided, Levesque confused a New Jersey area code with Fiji's, thus resolving the mystery as to why Vijay Singh is now the team's starting shortstop.

"Critics be damned," Levesque said. "It all makes absolute sense to me. Now can someone explain what in the hell WHIP is and if I can get a good one on eBay?"

Plunkers Name Head Coach

(1/22/08) - TAMPA (ESPN) -- Tampa Bay Plunkers owner Bill Levesque made it official on Tuesday, firing manager Gary Carter and replacing him with the frozen head of a deceased Hall of Famer.

At a news conference at Plunker Field, Levesque introduced Ted Williams cryonically preserved head to reporters by unzipping a converted bowling-ball bag packed with the head on ice.

"This head knows more about hitting than any head in major-league history," Levesque said. "Ted always maintained that a good hitter used the muscles between his ears. Arms are overrated in the science of hitting, as I'm sure our offense will demonstrate again and again this season."

Williams, whose head was separated from his body shortly after his 2002 death, was his irascible self, refusing to answer reporters' questions. When one reporter asked if he'd finally tip his hat to fans this coming season, Williams attempted to shrug his shoulders but, having none, simply wiggled his ears.

Levesque also cleaned house with the rest of the team's coaching staff. He said he had hired hitting great Bill Bergen as the Plunkers' batting coach. Bergen, who hit two major league homers in just over 3,000 career at bats (a 0.00066 HR percentage), has been out of the game since his 1943 death.

"But you never forget how to hit," said Levesque, who apologized that Bergen was unable to appear at the press conference owing to unexpected legal complications involving the exhumation of his body.

"Nobody in the game has a bigger heart than Bill," said Levesque, though baseball insiders say Bergen's "big heart" was a result of the heart disease that killed him.

Bergen was also the brother of Martin Bergen, a former major leaguer better known for his suicide and ax murder of his family than for his hitting. Martin has been hired as the Plunkers' assistant hitting coach, though Levesque said his contract contains a provision for severe penalties should Bergen ever be found in the possession of cutlery on a game day.

Levesque also introduced Herm Wehmeier at the new Plunkers pitching coach. In his major league career, Wehmeier sported a 4.80 ERA and led the league in walks three times, wild pitches twice and hit batsmen once.

While he walked 50 more batters than he struck out during his 13-year major league career, Levesque noted Wehmeier hadn't allowed a free pass since May 21, 1973, when the cessation of electrical activity in the hurler's brain ruined his once-formidable curveball.

Wehmeier was also oddly absent from the press conference.

A spokesman for the Sim players union said a grievance would be filed against the Plunkers because the major league collective-bargaining agreement barred corpses in the clubhouse.

But Levesque said the union was taking a hypocritical stand and noted that in the entire history of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, the union never objected "to the collection of corpses that team calls a starting line-up."

A source in the commissioners office said the league may force the Plunkers' coaches to undergo random testing during the season to determine their level of consciousness. Such testing might include a current events quiz, a source said, with a 50-day suspension for any coach who flunks.

The Plunkers are Born

(1/13/08) - TAMPA (AP) -- The Honolulu Sharks were rechristened the Tampa Bay Plunkers on Sunday after new team owner Bill Levesque decided to relocate the franchise.

An unidentified team souce said Levesque would likely fire manager Gary Carter in the coming days and replace him with the cryonically preserved head of baseball great Ted Williams.

Williams' disembodied head was seen this weekend rolling into team headquarters, but it refused to acknowledge shouted questions from reporters.

Levesque has a long and controversial history with cryonics and was indicted by a Tampa grand jury in 2002 for placing the bodies of promising minor leaguers in frozen stasis as a means to reduce team costs. But at trial, Levesque was acquitted of all charges after his lawyers told jurors the players were not cryonically preserved but merely suffering from a prolonged slump.