[wireman]

Originally Posted by 9lives

Would be cool if you posted some of the stories somewhere.

How about my final "compilation episode"?

SUMMERWIND -- Hartoun Shinplaster lay quietly on his bed of pain. The 125-year-old "Sage of Summerwind," who managed the Seagulls and was an informal adviser to the Laserus and Baltica franchises, was no longer struggling.

Shinplaster’s breathing was shallow now. He was dreaming, dreaming of all that had happened in his years with the LBA. He could hear the voices, his own and others', from the past two decades:

"We don't have a single real first baseman on the roster. We also don't have a single first baseman in AAA. Simple as that. In the circumstances, there was no choice but to move Buckshot Coles over from third. A lot of baseballs would slip through the infield if nobody was playing first."
-- Hartoun Shinplaster, after taking over as Summerwind's manager

"It's no secret that Gallant had the worst year in the history of second base last year."
-- Hartoun Shinplaster

"We've been playing Shady Prescott in left. When I got here, they told me he could play ball but, so far, even the most advanced scientific instruments can't find a trace of his talent."
-- Hartoun Shinplaster

"Maybe I'm supposed to light a fire under them. I hope it's not a bonfire."
-- Hartoun Shinplaster

"The kid was just trying to get his head in the game. He's gonna have to learn to keep his face out of the strike zone."
-- Hartoun Shinplaster, after Seagulls' outfielder Buster Kean was injured by a pitched ball

"I rushed out to the mound. The way this guy was acting, I thought, well, maybe his hand fell off or something. I was gonna help him look for it."
-- Hartoun Shinplaster, remembering Will Scarborough's disastrous debut

"Feel? I feel like I'm in a marching band -- inside the bass drum."
-- Seagulls pitcher Will Scarborough, pitching with a hangover

"Do your job, behave yourself, get screwed."
-- Summerwind's grumpy star Carl Schroyer

"Now, if he can just keep his mouth shut. He's not going to hit too many homers with his tongue."
-- Hartoun Shinplaster, speaking of Schroyer

"We're just a failure machine."
-- Hartoun Shinplaster, suffering through a 44-110 Seagulls season

"It looks like the team is still thinner than a senator's comb-over."
-- Bleacher Buzz, No. 1 Seagulls fan

"Sometimes he plays shortstop like he's wearing the glove over his eyes."
-- Bleacher Buzz, of hapless Gulls infielder Johnny Beard

"While the GM was diddling around in the free agent market, he might have thought about picking up a starter. But I guess it slipped his mind or something. I did notice that he drafted about 40 starters, so if we ever need to start a 12-year-old, we're set."
-- Hartoun Shinplaster

"And then, I realize it's not just raining -- it's raining those vicious little Summerwindian gnats. I was so privileged and proud to be part of Laseron's first-ever 'Gnat Delay.'"
-- Carl Schroyer, enjoying the Summerwind spring

"Cleanup hitter Carl 'The Complainer' Schroyer couldn't clean up his locker."
-- Bleacher Buzz

"Defending batting champion gets no respect. Details at 11."
-- Gulls' catcher Bond Robospher, after being passed over for the All-Star team

"So here I was, 32 years old, I'd been piloting the pine in Baltica for the last two seasons and suddenly I was the starting first baseman for the worst team in the solar system. This was an occasion for mixed emotions, eh?"
-- Jason Smith, on being a late bloomer in Summerwind

"This is pretty much the same crew we had last season. A handful of them can be expected to improve this season; a handful will decline, or perhaps unravel altogether. But most of them would be in their primes if they had any."
-- Hartoun Shinplaster, looking forward to another great year

"So, forgive me, but why would I want to spend a career in a weemus-hole like Summerwind?"
-- Gulls pitcher Gordon Wolf

"I think predicting they'd finish within 34 games of .500 might have put too much pressure on the lads."
-- Hartoun Shinplaster, vowing to go easy on the expectation game

"Let's face it [John] Lowman's got a baseball-sized hole in his bat."
-- Hartoun Shinplaster, of the career .194 hitter who played six seasons for Summerwind

"If we could hit for average or hit for power, draw a walk once in a while or pitch at all, we'd be a pretty dangerous team. We've got almost everything else we need to win."
-- Hartoun Shinplaster, summing up

"Frankly, I can't figure it out. It's like every pitch is just hanging there, suspended in air, begging me to hit it. I can't help myself."
-- Gulls third baseman Harry Gelton (after winning Player of the Week with a .684 batting average)

"Actually, I was astonished when Summerwind drafted me. I still can't figure out when they ever saw me play the game. But somehow, they decided I was the 785th-best player out there."
-- Harry Gelton

"Oh, great. I really wanted to wind up my career with this sorry bunch of gnat-inhaling losers."
-- Pitcher Mange Kopperhead, later mayor of Summerwind

"The Northern League's never seen anything like me before. Boy, are they gonna be surprised."
-- Greg Combest, before going 0-2 for the Gulls and getting traded back to the SL

"OK, I let one get away from me, gave up a grand slam that lost the game. But jeez, it was Grover Staggons. How can you concentrate when you're facing a .160 hitter?"
-- Laft Kaley, a great pitcher who threw 13.1 horrible innings in a Summerwind uniform

"I've been here since June and I'm still sharing jerseys with Todd 'The Wad' Walters! If this has to be the cheapest team in Laseron, they at least could let me share with Packard. Or somebody who takes a shower once in a while. It's no wonder I can't pitch sometimes; I've gotta chase Walters' jerseys around the locker room to get dressed."
-- Mange Kopperhead, on the Seagulls frugality

"Bring the money. Bring the money. Bring the money. And losers need not apply."
-- Mange Kopperhead, announcing his free agency

"Mange [Kopperhead] could be a jerk for a living. I hear he's going into politics."
-- Gulls outfielder Shady Prescott, who heard it right

"Right now, at 6-1, 150 pounds, he's just a shadow of his future self."
-- Seagulls batting coach Buckshot Coles, assessing rookie outfielder L.L. "Blade" Ballad

"On those days when Prince [Kinchen] feels like playing, there's actually nothing on a ballfield he can't do. On other days, well ... Prince is a dog's name, isn't it?"
-- Buckshot Coles

"Right now, he can't tell home plate from a dinner plate."
-- Seagulls pitching coach Soddy Gruzwall, of wild young reliever Todd Walters

"It is the desire of every good citizen of Summerwind that Mange Kopperhead be voted without further delay to his richly deserved place in the LBA Hall of Fame."
-- Mange Kopperhead, from his mayoral proclamation

"It was very peaceful. She just quietly went to sleep. I believe she mumbled something right at the end about [Erindel infielder] Catford Muuey, but I couldn't quite make it out."
-- Hartoun Shinplaster, commenting on the passing of Summerwind mascot Louise the Cat

"I can catch a ball as well as anybody -- I've got a Nix around here someplace. I'm a Top 10 base stealer, all-time. And when I hit the ball, I can mail it out of town."
-- Seagulls outfielder Prince Kinchen, on his favorite topic

"I could hardly believe it, but there it was in black-and-white: My Dad's birth name was 'Fishwrap Kinchen.' I asked my Mom about it and, of course, she'd known all along. She said my Dad had wanted us to believe in ourselves, believe that we were somebody. Yeah, I thought, somebody we were not."
-- Prince Kinchen, after discovering his late father wasn't "King" Kinchen after all, and wasn't related to the famed baseball Kings

"People retire from sports and go into wrestling; they don't retire from wrestling and go into sports."
-- Ratt Rollo, the pro wrestler who became Summerwind's skipper anyway

"For a long time, I didn't say anything, but I had kind of a tingling sensation that told me I probably ought to take him up on it. Or my foot went to sleep."
-- Ratt Rollo, of being offered the Summerwind job

"Look, I'm 100 years older than Rollo. I'm not working for the money. I'm not working for the ego. I'm not working for the glory, such as it is. I've done the best I could, of course, but, primarily, I'm working just to keep from nodding off."
-- Hartoun Shinplaster

"It's just a world of chumps out there."
-- radio personality Mister Scary, after Rollo's hiring

"I saw Ratt Rollo wrestle the Masked Troglodyte back in '07. Great stuff! I wonder if he could get some of the Gulls' opponents to take a dive too?"
-- Bleacher Buzz

"The walk back to the dugout was so long, it felt like I was walking back to the minors."
-- Gil Galad, after fanning in his first big league at bat

"I know the way you feel. All your life, baseball has been fun. You played as much as you wanted, owned practically every pitcher you came up against, and really enjoyed yourself.

"Now you're finding out that even the thing you love, when it turns into work, can wear you down. You've gotta play when there's no joy in it, when you don't feel like you can do anything right. You've still got to get out there and do it.

"Well, welcome to the world. This is what everybody does; get used to it. But I'll tell you something: You're supremely privileged getting to play every day in the majors. And you might do it for 20 years, and you'll be privileged every day of it.

"At this point in my career, I wish I could play every day. In fact, if you don't want to play, I'll play second base. Any time you want."
-- Old veteran Shady Prescott's advice to rookie Gil Galad

"A wise man once said, 'That's life, that's what all the people say.
You're ridin' high in April, shot down in May, Or August, whatever.

"You're 20 years old, you've got talent enough to hold your own here in Summerwind. You've got what it takes, so don't you worry 'bout a thing.

"You've gotta look yourself in the mirror and say, 'I'm hot stuff, I will survive.' Just let it be."
-- Ratt Rollo's advice to Gil Galad, which left him humming

"I've got him on my own personal overeating regimen; it's gonna make him an all-star."
-- Ratt Rollo, commenting on his plans for L.L. "Blade" Ballad, who never gained an ounce but was an All-Star three times

"Where did we get all these slowball pitchers?"
-- Hartoun Shinplaster

"I didn't know what Rule 5 was -- I hadn't even heard about Rule 1 yet."
-- Seagulls' minor league veteran John Bloodworth

"I felt good that I was probably going to the big leagues -- maybe it's the only way it could have happened for me. On the other hand, it felt bad that I wasn't good enough for a team that had winkles exhibitions between innings."
-- John Bloodworth, after Summerwind left him exposed to the Rule 5 draft

"I think I'm up for mismanager of the year."
-- Louie Sword, Summerwind/Laserus/Baltica GM, and the LBA's foremost also-ran

"Hell, I caught him in the locker room once with a book, and it didn't even have any pictures in it."
-- Ratt Rollo, who thought starter Jeremy Raidenburner's IQ was too high

"I'll be a lot happier looking at the Masked Troglodyte than this bunch of losers. At least with him, I know what to expect. I mean, I really know what to expect, if you know what I mean."
-- Ratt Rollo, on returning to pro wrestling

"Winning games is not the important thing. No, really.. It's about the fulfillment of human potential. It's about growth and renewal. It's about sacrifice and dedication and, ultimately, redemption. And it's about the sweet smell of the new-mown grass. It's about the satisfaction of making good contact with a baseball. It's about the sheer, animal joy of running and jumping and throwing. It's about the warm silk of the summer breeze on your face, just when you'd almost forgotten you were really alive.

"In short, gentlemen, we don't have a winner this year either."
-- Hartoun Shinplaster, facing facts with whimsy

"I'm pretty old, all right. But you get so much stuff replaced, you start to feel like you're new again. No original parts."
-- Hartoun Shinplaster

"Let me lay out the terrain for you here, Double-D, because I want perfect transparency as we travel this path to ultimate victory. I am a businessman. I will make the balance sheets dance. I also will bring us a winning baseball team -- if I don't, it's Schroyer's fault. I demand accountability."
-- Cheap News Network exec Wylie Xmarx DuPree, seizing the purse strings in Laserus

"To make a long story short, the whole WWE thing just wasn't working out for him -- seems the audience for wrestling evangelists was not really as great as he'd thought."
-- Wylie Xmarx DuPree, of Ratt Rollo's return to the LBA

"He was raw. No, I take that back. Sobtec Bay spushi is raw. Espada was practically fetal."
-- anonymous scout, of the teenage Willie Espada

"The bullpen's a world-class mess; I don't even want to talk about it. They've all been in an advanced state of decomposition in August -- they stink. That's about all that can be said."
-- Harry Gelton, after becoming Baltica's manager

"It's hard to keep the stands filled when you're in the same division as Soni and Laserus, and nobody's gonna come out to see Rand's bank account."
-- Harry Gelton, alluding to outfielder Davie Rand's $12.5-million-a-year contract

[i]"How many times have you looked at some situation in your past and said, 'If only I knew then what I know now'? Well, with baseball, it's like you're born again every spring, born again -- really. Each season is a new lifetime you get to live. And, you know what? When you start, you KNOW what you SHOULD have known in the lifetime before."
-- Baltica pitcher Kenny English

"Life is shorter than we can imagine, and championships are fleeting. You've just gotta enjoy the ride, and try to make sure other people do, too. That's all."
-- Harry Gelton

Now, Shinplaster is still. He may yet be dreaming, but that is not for us to know.

That should be more than enough. Once again, thanks for the great time.