Pablo_Kielbasa's Mombasa

Big Huge Muscle Guy Pretty Much Scaring The Hell Out Of Everyone He Bumps Into


Carbo load! You wish you were me! You wish you were me! RAaaaaaarrrrRRR... RRRrrr....aaahhhhh!!

IRON CITY , PA - Iron City bodybuilding enthusiast Eddie Tufts was recently observed "scaring the hell out of pretty much everyone he bumps into" according to his anxiously alarmed girlfriend Trisha Ziske.

"I-It's getting crazy! Eddie is so massive and bulked up, I think this whole weight lifting thing has totally consumed him. It's like he turns into a mad Hulk or something, and rails on and on about how huge he is. I-I can't take it anymore!*sob*!"

Friends and family of Tufts have recanted tales of him insanely ranting "Minimum weight 205, max weight 215! Keep my run below 14 flat at least, separation and vascularity in the arms, legs, losing the gut and watching abs emerge. Good stuff! Cardio diet! You wish you were me! You WISH you were me!" to pretty much anyone within eye range or earshot.

"We can't stop him!" Bemoaned Ziske. "He benches everything in sight. He lifts riding mowers over his head with riders on them, baby carriages with babies in them and even turned 2 fully loaded shopping carts into curling irons! The steroids must have gone straight to his brain. He outta control!"

Other tales recounted Tufts lifting the rear wheels of convertible Volkswagen Golfs at red lights, ripping the top of beer cans off with his teeth and even cracking walnuts without a nutcracker, and without his hands, neither.

Eventually, Tufts would come down off of his chaotic cardiovascular high after a series of sudden agonizing muscular rips and abdominal tears, the worst of which was heard, not to mention whiffed, clean over in McKees Rocks.

 

 Exhausted, Jeter returned to his room and fell into a brief,  tortured sleep.

He dreamt the same dream again. An ancient steam train far in the distance, a distant light looming high on the horizon, the atmosphere of roiling, gray black clouds enveloping the light, growing larger and larger, a thousand voices in harmony calling him to go into the light...go into the light...

A faint tap on the door jostled Jeter awake. A hushed female voice whispered

"Derek?...Derek...let me in."

"K-Kelly? Is that you? Wait..."

Jeter quietly opened the door. She sat softly on the bed, removing several
 things from her purse.

"We don't have much time. The game is tomorrow, and I need to brief you on what you need to do to get through this. Listen carefully, you must get all of this correct."

Jeter nodded and stared intensely into Kelly's eyes.

"Put this on."

Kelly handed Jeter a necklace. A silver chain with a small silver capsule. The capsule was about the size of a thimble and was warm to the touch.

"W-What is..."

"That's your ticket back home. Back to 2003. That capsule is a Plutonium powered transmitter programmed to allow you to enter back into the vortex, and guide you back in time 100 years to the moment before the plane you and the Yankees were on flew into the storm. It will also program the plane to avoid the storm as well. You must not lose it. If you do, all will be lost."

Jeter gripped the pendant intently

"Got it. But what about the rest of the team, won't they need one of these gadgets too?"

"No. Only one need enter the vortex to reset the breach in time. When the vortex approaches Sky Stadium, you will see it as a small light, growing in size as it approaches."

Jeter instantly thought of his dream

"My father will pilot sky stadium toward the light. You must run toward the light and into it. Do not be afraid, the pendant will shield you. Once you land in Cleveland in 2003 you must give the memory sticks Joan and David gave you to the appropriate parties. Do you still have them?"

Jeter tapped at his belt. "Yeah. Right here. I taped them into my jersey."

"Good. Keep in mind that you and only you will have any memory of this ever happening. The team won't remember a thing, so keep that in mind. There is one more thing. Take this letter. Do not open it until you land. You must go to the Shenandoah crash site in Noble County, Ohio. That was the Zeppelin my father was piloting back in 1925 when he was tossed into the vortex and survived. There will be someone there waiting for you. Do you understand all of this?"

"Yes. I'll do everything I can to win this. I-I need to know, though will I see you..."

Kelly leaned and  softly kissed Jeter on the side of his mouth. A brief, intangible contact that lit the sky up like a thousand dazzling lights. Jeter again thought of his wife, but did not resist.
    
"In a way you will. When you get back, you will understand."

Kelly smiled and quietly gathered her things. She locked the door to Jeter's room behind her with a hushed click. Jeter lie back, his head a titanic maelstrom of savage imagery and fear, and yet the reassuring taste and scent of lipstick had somehow alchemized his seeming impossible plight into one still clearly terrifying, yet oddly compelling. He stared blankly at the ceiling, managing a weak grin.

"No sweat."

Kelly walked quietly down the hall and entered the elevator, pressing the lobby key. Just as the doors began to close a hand lurched in, seizing the door. The giant scarred and calloused hand wore a large, conspicuous ring on it, gold, studded with huge diamonds. Terrified, Kelly glanced up.

"Good evening Miss Lansdowne. May I have a moment?"  

Yankees 2103 part 8 -interlude-

The Yankees returned to Sky Stadium early the next morning, the orange hemisphered sun gently rising above the calm, shimmering surface of Lake Erie. Joe Torre and bench coach Willie Randolph fitted out the team with their new cybernetic equipment.

The team seemed to revel in the power that the Mustangs and Heidelbergs gave them. Designated hitter Ruben Sierra quickly mastered batting using the Heidelberg compensator, chopping 300 foot practice grounders with a single hand. Fitted with a special pitching Heidelberg, Mike Mussina, hefting the three pound orange ball as if it were crumpled paper, fired a 200 mph fastball, Jorge Posada straining to brace against the impact with his special catcher leggings and oversized, titanium webbed catchers mit. The first throw blew Posada right on his back, prompting a hearty laugh from the dugout.

After Mussina and Posada had developed a rhythm and reasonable measure of control, Jeter stepped into the batters box, flexing his new right hand.

Kessler abruptly stepped out into the playing field.

"Throw it at his head..." Kessler demanded

The team went deathly quiet, Torre rushed out from the dugout, sharply removing his cap

An armed guard stepped forward, brandishing a machine gun

Torre froze

Kessler glanced sharply at Mussina

"I said, throw it at his head...now..."

Torre paused, replaced his cap and nodded at Mussina

"Do what he says, Michael."

Jeter glanced nervously at Torre. Torre gave another reassuring nod.

Jeter gingerly stepped back into the batters box. Mussina wound up and threw a high outside fastball, skipping past Posada and ramming into the metal backstop with an earsplitting clang.

Kessler grabbed the guards machine gun and trained it on Mussina

"Try it again, and this time throw it at...his...head"

Mussina gave a desperate, apologetic glance at Jeter, steeled himself, wound up and threw. A shrill triple alarm eminated from Mussina's Heidelberg, freezing his arm midpitch, the ball sailing high onto the chain-mail backstop. The shift of momemtum tossed Messina into a tumbling cartwheel.

Kessler roared with laughter

"There's a safety protocol built into your compensator. Even if you tried to hit a batter, it wouldn't let you. The computer calculates the angle and velocity of your pitch and kills the throw if it goes dangerously wild. We wouldn't want your little team killed off one by one in the first inning now, would we?"

Kessler laughed again and turned away. Jeter lifted his bat, pointing it at Kesslers back as he walked off field.

The team spent the better part of the day hitting, throwing and catching the enormous ball and getting used to the great speed, power and momentum of their bio-machinery. The distance to center field was extended to nearly 1000 feet, the baselines and distance to pitchers mound doubled. Jeter clanged an 800 foot liner with a jam swing into center, tearing through first and into second at nearly 60 mph before Bernie Williams snagged the rapidly dieing ball, throwing a 600 foot strike into second base, sending Miguel Cairo into a piroutte of dust and screams as he braced against its artillery like impact.

Willie Randolph managed a weak smile

"I think we can win this Joe. I'm starting to experience, well...hope."

Torre's expression remained unchanged

"We don't have to win. We just have to survive the game."

Before Randolph could ask why, Torre pointed to the far edge of the dugout. Their attention riveted on Hideki Matsui.

"What the hell is he doing?"

Torre looked on gravely, his eyes lit with both sorrow and admiration

"He's preparing for his death."

Indeed, Matsui understood where he was, and what the stakes were. He was sitting crosslegged, clad in a ritual white Samurai Kimono. At his feet were a ceremonial Wakizashi short sword, a cup of Sake, and a paper and pen. Samurai 'Bushido' code demands victory or death over disgrace and life. Matsui sipped from a cup of warm rice wine, and wrote a short poem. He lifted the short sword to the setting sun, traced a square on his exposed abdomen, and replaced it in its scabbard. He bowed his head in silence.

Torre spoke softly

"Hideki knows that we can't win, or lose, for that matter. We can only fight and die with honor. He's showing that an honorable death is the only way out. This is baseball the way he has always wanted it to be played. If he is defeated without honor, he will commit Seppuku, or ritual suicide."

Torre's voice grew loud in the mountainous stadium, echoing through the empty tiers

"Hideki's in his element. He's come home."

Torre pulled his cap tight against the setting sun.

Ob's stürmt oder schneit,
Ob die Sonne uns lacht
Der Tag glühend heiß
Oder eiskalt die Nacht
Bestaubt sind die Gesichter
Doch froh ist unser Sinn 
Jah, unser Sinn
Es braust unser Panzer
Im Sturmwind dahin!

Gentlemen, start your engines!

Gentlemen, start your engines!

What is the meaning of NASCAR?

Timeline: December 16,1944. An audaciously brazen, completely unexpected Nazi air and armored assault against dozing American forces occupying newly liberated France begins. Thousands of German Panzer tanks cross through the densely forested Ardennes region, just as they successfully had done 4 years before, with the strategic goal of trapping four American armies in Antwerp and forcing a peace settlement with the Allied forces.

The first several days of the offensive went well for the Nazis. Hundreds of allied tanks were destroyed, and tens of thousands of prisoners taken. The city of Bastogne, along with the 101st paratroop division, was encircled and besieged, prompting the famous reply 'Nuts!' from commander General Anthony McCaulliffe in an obstinate, hastily scribbled response to German demands to surrender.

Several hundred miles to the south, General George Patton thrust into action.

His Third Army, with its hundreds of Sherman tanks, cranked to life, their massive aluminum block Ford 'Grand Blanc' 410 h.p. 12 cylinder diesel engines roaring in viscous protest against the icy December chill.

Patton turned his gun turrets North.

His column of Shermans sallied forth toward the Bastogne maelstrom with calculated, dread determination. Along with the Shermans must go the supply and support columns. As the Shermans race along at top speed they eat up fuel and caterpiller tank treads at an alarming rate. Supply trucks race to keep pace, refueling the Sherman's mammoth 126 gallon dry tanks in the blink of an eye. A crack Sherman crew could pull a shattered caterpiller tread off and replace it with a new one in a matter of minutes.

In order to deliver an armored column to its goal, one must carefully calculate the troop demands, distances and supply logistics involved. Gasoline, spare parts, ammunition must all be measured and allocated before the offensive starts. It makes little sense to send an Army forward, only to have it run dry before it reaches its primary objective. This demands impeccable planning and communication.

9 days later, Patton arrived to relieve the desperate siege of Bastogne, crushing the poorly supplied Panzer divisions with his clockwork Shermans. Within a little more than a month, the Battle of the Bulge was over. The primary reason for the Nazi defeat? The Panzers had run out of gas.

That is the meaning of NASCAR.

Shortly after I wrote and posted  this story on my personal website, I got a nice e-mail response from 'Buck" John Wilkin, author of the song 'Little GTO' and band leader of Ronny and the Daytonas,  telling me that I got the meaning of his lyrics right, and he liked the story alot. Here it is, from Buck from me to you!

Ronny And The Daytonas Song 'Little GTO' Explained


Little GTO! Three deuce carbs 'hot setup', 1966

 

Ever listen to the classic old Ronnie and the Daytonas song "Little GTO" and wonder what the words meant?

Below is a line by line analysis of the song 'Little GTO' (self-explanatory lines ignored) and what they mean. After absorbing their meaning, it's easy to see what inspired song writer John Wilkin to pen them in the first place. Vrooom!

Little GTO, you're really lookin' fine

One of the all time classic Great American Muscle cars of the 60's and 70's. In 1964 the early stages of the muscle car era were dominated by full size cars. At GM, corporate policy prohibited any intermediate size car from having engines greater than 330 cubic inch displacement. The engineers at Pontiac had a different idea. They boldly made their 389 CID engine an option on the mid size Tempest and called the option package GTO, which copied Ferrari's GTO (Gran Turismo Omologato) model. The car that was marketed under a Tiger motif, but soon became known as the "Goat".

Three deuces and a four-speed and a 389

'Three deuces' refers to the 3 carburetor "hot setup". In 1964, the base GTO engine was a 389 cubic inch topped with a Carter four bbl. carburetor. As potent as it was, the hot set-up consisted of a set of three vacuum controlled Rochester two bbl carburetors, known as the tri-power option. Three carburetors increase engine power significantly at high RPM's. The three deuce hot setup can be seen in the lower picture.

'4-speed' refers to the manual transmission. The GTO came stock with a 3 speed manual transmission, with the 4 speed as an upgrade option. The first 1964 GTO, equipped with Motor Trends four-speed, 325-hp engine, rocketed from zero to 60 mph in 7.7 seconds and blasted through the quarter-mile in 15.8 seconds at 93 mph.

'389' refers to the Pontiac CID 389 cubic inch engine. Available mills got bigger in 1970 with a 455 cubic inch, although maximum horsepower (370) was produced by the 400 cubic inch engine. Pollution control regulations became aggressive in 1974, and subsequent engine displacement and horsepower predictably dipped, the last year of the GTO.

Listen to her tachin' up now, listen to her why-ee-eye-ine

'Tachin' up' refers to the tachometer, an instrument that indicates the speed, usually in revolutions per minute, at which an engine shaft is rotating. Revving an engine hard is referred as 'tachin' up'.

C'mon and turn it on, wind it up, blow it out GTO
Wa-wa, (mixed with "Yeah, yeah, little GTO") wa, wa, wa, wa, wa, wa (mixed with "Yeah, yeah, little GTO")
You oughta see her on a road course or a quarter mile
This little modified Pon-Pon has got plenty of style

'Pon-Pon' was a pet name for Pontiac. Road course and quarter mile are 2 types of race track format. A road course is an oval, while the quarter mile is linear.

She beats the gassers and the rail jobs, really drives 'em why-ee-eye-ild C'mon and turn it on, wind it up, blow it out GTO

A Gasser is a super charged gas coupe, popular in the 40's, 50's and 60's. In the late 1950s, thousands of street legal hot rods participated in organized drag races across the country-they ran in three major classes: Gas, Modified Production, and Modified Sport. Racers soon discovered that small, lightweight cars were the fastest, and the classic Gasser was born. The classic 1960's puffed appearance of the gasser can be seen in the picture at left. Competing with a cherried out gasser was no small challenge for the GTO.

Gasser wars! Rail jobs!

 

A rail job is another name for a dragster, and refers to the classic elongated needle like dragster chassis. Gassers and rail jobs were 2 of the popular racing chassis schemes during the Great American drag race era. In context of the song, it's no small boast for a factory GTO to compete with these specialized, high performance racers.

Gonna save all my money (turnin' it on, blowin' it out) and buy a GTO (turnin' it on, blowin' it out), Get a helmet and a roll bar (turnin' it on, blowin' it out) and I'll be ready to go (turnin' it on, blowin' it out)

With an original base list price of $3081 at a time when the average income in the U.S. was $4396, the GTO was not cheap. Better wrap those pennies, if you want the helmet and roll bar extras, daddy!

Take it out to Pomona

Pomona refers to the famous Pomona Raceway, built in 1961 in Pomona California. Originally opened as a way to encourage street racers to compete safely, Auto Club Raceway at Pomona was built with the combined efforts of the Pomona Valley Timing Association, Pomona Police Chief Ralph Parker, and the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds. In 2001, Auto Club Raceway at Pomona's entire 1,320-foot racing surface was repaved to extend the concrete launch pad from 330 to 660 feet, and is still in use, and undergoing improvement even today.

(turnin' it on, blowin' it out) and let 'em know (turnin' it on, blowin' it out), yeah, yeah
That I'm the coolest thing around
Little buddy, gonna shut you down
When I turn it on, wind it up, blow it out GTO


FADE

Yankees 2103 part 7


Jeter returned to his room and closed the door. The door locked shut behind him. He got in bed and fell into a fitfull sleep.

An Indian boy, dressed in loin cloth and tribal head band, crouched atop a craggy outcrop of boulders overlooking a railroad track far below. An ancient steam locomotive appears on the horizon, its light blazing, almost setting the canyon walls afire.

Stonethrower awaits

As the train approaches, he readies a large rock, aiming to roll it down the craggy hill at the onrushing train. Stonethrower hates the Iron Horse and the misery it has brought to his people and the land. The train looms ever closer, its blaring light growing larger and larger, first the size of a dime, growing to the size of a silver dollar.

Just as Stonethrower starts to release the boulder, the light explodes into a thousand meteoric fragments and flaming sparks, arcing through the dark sky toward Stonethrower, singing in a fugue of Siren voices

"Stonethrower...Stonethrower...Stonethrower!"

Suddenly the train is gone, the night sky starry and quiet. A rocky crag atop the cliff on which Stonethrower lies becomes emblazoned with strange and wonderfull shapes and symbols, glowing in rare colors of neon pink, purple, rare blue and glowing cyan. The sign of the Apache -a snake like symbol resembling an elongated "S" glows eerily on the cliff face. The Indian Gods have acknowledged Stonethrowers rage and have given him a sign.

Doused with sweat, Jeter jerked his head from the pillow. It was just a dream, the same dream he had on the airplane...

Someone knocked on the door, shocking his exhausted nerves again.

"W-who's there? Kelly?"

"Derek, It's Joe. Get your gear. We're going to play ball."

Jeter donned his Yankees uniform and headed downstairs.

"Mr. Torre, I need to talk to you. It's about the future, I mean the present...they want us destroyed, I have to tell you about..."

"I know Derek. Me and David did some research of our own, and I think were on the same page. We'll discuss it later. Oh, and Derek, please don't call me 'Mr. Torre'. Call me Joe."

Jeter managed a weak smile

"Yes Mr. Torre."

Torre tipped his cap forward and smiled.

The trip on the tram to the lakefront only took a few minutes. Under armed guard, the team assembled just outside of an empty, lined field, about a half a mile in length.

Jorge Posada looked about quizzically

"Where is my stadium?"

A few moments passed as the confused Yankees looked about

"I think they're playing another muy loco trick on us, Joe...I..."

A sudden rumbling drowned out Pasada. A tiny black dot appeared over the lake, rapidly increasing from the size of a dime to a silver dollar, growing larger and larger, eclipsing the sun with a tremendous roar, louder than a thousand jumbo jets, finally filling the sky with its enormity. Holding their caps to their heads against the rushing thermals of scorching air, the Yankees froze in terror as the giant form of an aerial stadium emerged from the sky, softly settling down within the lined off square of land.

A clearly astonished Torre looked on

"Uhh..Jorge, I'm not sure, but I think that's your stadium."

The stunned Yankees filed into the stadium, down a long hall, and out into the infield.

Jeter whispered to himself

"This is it. Kelly wasn't kidding. It's the Sky Stadium."

The team was greeted by an armed escort, and led into a locker room. A tall man dressed in a baseball uniform approached the team. He seemed to recognize Jeter. He walked slowly toward him, abruptly kicking the bag from Jeter's hand.

"You won't be needing your gear. We play things differently nowadays."

Jeter clenched his fist. Torre whispered

"Steady Derek"

The man went to a locker and brought out two pieces of odd looking equipment. It was obvious that one was designed to be fitted over the shoulder and arm. The others were clearly a pair of robotic-like leggings.

"My name is Kessler."

Kessler held his hand out to Torre

"I'm the manager of the 2103 New York Yankees."

Just as Torre extended his palm, Kessler sucker punched him with a lightning uppercut, dropping him to the locker room floor. The team erupted in mad protest and charged Kessler. Four armed guards stepped forward, raising their weapons, at the same time, Joe Torre shouted

"Hold it! Back down! I'm fine..."

Pasada helped Torre to his feet. Torre wiped blood from his lip, staring Kessler in the eyes

"We can't win it in here, boys. We'll beat the bastards out on the field."

Kessler smiled

"That's the spirit that I respect. Now come with me."

On the field, Kessler singled out Jeter, strapping one of the machines to Derek's upper body.

"This is a Heidelberg compensator. It's part machine part shark jaw muscle. Shark jaw muscle is the most powerfull organic lever in all of nature, giving sharks the ability to crush heavy gauge steel tubing with a single bite of their powerfull jaws. Our engineers have melded it into a computer controlled Titanium framework . It gives the batter, and the thrower, 10 times the power of the strongest unassisted player."

Kessler picked up the strange robotic leggings and sucker tossed them at Jeter, hard

"Put the leggings on."

Restraining a boiling rage, Jeter strapped on the leggings, much like a catchers.

"Those are called Mustangs, for good reason. They are fabricated from the same Titanium and shark jaw muscle as the Heidlebergs. Take a run, Jeter."

Jeter walked up from the dugout, and started into a slow trot. Suddenly, he felt the Mustangs grip his thighs and calves, instantly giving him a sense of enormous lower body strength. He trotted up first base line, rounded first, and broke into a full speed run around second. The leggings screamed to life, propelling Jeter to almost 40 miles per hour in a few steps. Unaccustomed to their power, Jeter found himself outrunning himself, tumbling head over heels into a cloud of infield dust.

Battered and shaken, Jeter dragged himself from the dirt.

Kessler laughed uproarously

"Ha-ha-haaa! That's what happens when you try them for the first time! It takes a few practice runs to gauge their obvious power!"

Holding a bloodied elbow, Jeter trotted back to the dugout, this time slowly.

Kessler picked up a large oversize glove and a ball. He tossed the ball to Jeter, his arm sagging under it's weight.

"This thing must weigh 3 lbs...How can anyone possibly..."

Kessler tossed Jeter the glove

3.3 lbs. to be exact. It's made from carbon-carbon fibre, reinforced with steel meshing and covered with high tensile Titanium cloth. Turn your Heidelberg on. The switch is on the forearm.

Jeter switched the Heidelberg compensator on. It gripped his arm and upper body much like the Mustangs did his legs.

"Now pick the ball up"

Jeter picked the heavy ball up like it was featherweight

"Nice. Real nice."

The glove is made from the same reinforced mesh, and can almost literally absorb the energy of an onrushing train. The oversize, mechanized webbing helps keeps the ball away from the palm. Don't let the ball hit the soft spot. One miscalculation and your hand is a mash of bone fragments...Got it?!"

Torre looked on with a grave expression born of paternal instinct for the welfare of his team

Kessler picked up an equally heavy, oversize bat

"Jeter, take your posistion. I want to hit you a few."

Kessler donned his Heidelberg and stepped up to home plate. Jeter waited at short stop, flexing his half-man half-machine body. Kessler rifled a sharp line drive straight at Jeter, who responded with a quick knee down, shielding his body with the oversize glove, remembering to catch the ball in the webbing. The ball caught him dead on with the momentum of a hurtling sledgehammer, cartwheeling him onto his back.

Kessler roared with laughter again

"You need to learn to use the leggings to buttress your body against the massive weight of the ball. Try again."

Kessler shifted his stance to the far left. Torre read the move, shouting "Derek!...Don't!" Kessler chipped a 40 mph slow chopper down third base line. Without thinking, Jeter reacted instinctivley, barehanding the ball. The ball struck Jeter's bare right palm with the force of a cannon ball, shattering it into a flying pulverized mass of flesh, blood and bone. Screaming, Jeter fell to the infield like a stone.

The Yankees had seen enough.

Like a wild tribe, the Yankees seemed to react as one, rushing at Kessler. A sudden burst of machine gun fire riddled the infield in front of them, kicking up tiny puffs of dust.

The team froze. Torre rushed forward.

"Kessler! you son-of-a-[...]! What do you people want from us! In the name of God!"

Kessler removed his Heidelberg, tossing it down with a metallic clank

"He'll be fine. In two hours the medic droids will give him a new hand that's better and stronger than the old one. I don't think any of your players will be barehanding after that demonstration. That's enough 'training' for today. The guards will bring you back tomorrow."

Unconscious, Jeter was taken from the field by medic droids, and transported to an operating room. He awoke several hours later, Torre over his bed.

"M-mr. Torre...what happened?...my hand, I lost my hand!..."

In a frenzied panick, Jeter quickly jerked his right hand from the covers. It was whole. He worked the fingers. They felt. No numbness or loss of sensation.

"B-but how?"

"They fitted you with a cybernetic hand. Medicine has come a long way in 100 years...if you can call it medicine. Derek, listen to me. I don't know how this is going to turn out, but one thing is for sure, baseball isn't a game any more. These guys are in it for blood, not trophies. It's more like a gladitorial match in the ancient Roman Coliseum. We'll just have to take it day by day, and see if we can find a way out of this.

Jeter thought of Kelly Lansdowne and the memory sticks

"In the mean time, get some rest. We've got a big day tomorrow."

Jeter felt the room spinning around him. He closed his eyes and passed out.

Yankees 2103 part 6

Jeter looked inquisitively at the sticks in his palm.

"I-I don't understand. How does all this tie together? Fill me in."

David beckoned Jeter and Kelly to sit down.

"Derek, listen carefully . On one of those memory sticks is all the information the White House will need to prevent the terrorists from carrying out their plans in the future...your future, that is, back in 2003. They will know it's for real by the names and events we describe. Everything on there was highly classified in 2003. The other stick must be given to Doctor Kathleen Lamping. She will know how to interpret it. We are hoping that when she sees what devastation her bio-genetic research had resulted in, she will pull the plug and scuttle the whole program."

David poured tumblers of cognac, which Jeter declined.

"We put contact names on the sticks as well. When you get back home to 2003, you shouldn't have any trouble finding them."

Jeter slipped the sticks in his breast pocket.

"Will these work in an obsolete computer? I mean a computer from my time?"

"Good question. Those are standard Sony media sticks we "borrowed" from a museum, so to speak. We tested them with your day's technology, and they work just fine."

Jeter's expression was unchanged as he buttoned his jacket.

"How does baseball fit in?"

David smiled.

"Ahh...of course. We have found a way to predict when and where instabilities will occur in the space time continuum. We know that a micro "rift" will open above Cleveland in exactly 12 days. We've calculated that it will take you back in time a few minutes before you flew into the wormhole, and we've temporaly programmed the 747 you were in with the neccesary manuevers to avoid it. We feel it should be open long enough for you and the team to enter it."

A technician at one of the tables interjected:

"It will be 45 feet in diameter for a duration of 27.7 seconds, at an altitude of 3700 feet."

Jeter looked on thoughtfully.

"Oh, so we will fly into it again, right? Just like when we came here? But still, how does baseball..."

Shaking his head, David interjected

"No. Big difference. There is no way that we can obtain a plane. Everything is tightly controlled almost down to the atomic level, these days. Orbital satellites can literally observe every square inch of land on Earth. Complex computer "sentries" are fed information instantly, and anything deemed unusual is intercepted and dealt with accordingly."

"We plan to use Sky Stadium to fly you and the team into the wormhole."

Before Jeter could speak, Kelly Lansdowne explained.

"Sky Stadium is where baseball is played in the future. The stadium is half a mile square, and is levitated by directional ducted fans powered by four 3000 Megawatt fusion reactors. The stadium seats 60,000, and can land and take off like an aircraft. It was derived as a spinoff of portable military bases, of course."

Clearly astonished, Jeter quizzed

"But why? That sounds crazy."

"Of course, it is, and it isn't for the view, either. Remember I told you that everyone given the stem cell injections could not feel normal extremes of emotion?"

Jeter glanced nervously down at the pin prick on his arm.

"There's a catch. The Overseers soon discovered that people soon went mad without normal emotional venting. Some even died. A safe way had to be developed that allowed a manageable release, and baseball was the answer. Spectators at Sky Dome are given a "cocktail" antidote that blocks the effects of the stem cells. They are "normal" for 5 or 6 hours. As you can imagine, the pent up rage is enormous. They make the spectators at the ancient Roman Coliseum seem tame by comparison. By levitating the Sky Stadium, the Overseers have a safety measure built in. If things get out of hand...well, I'm sure you can figure it out."

David looked at Jeter softly.

"It gets ugly on the field, Derek It's far more than we can ask of you and the team, but you're our only hope."

Jeter smiled.

"Don't worry; they can't be half as bad as Red Sox fans."

Without warning, a titanic blast shook the rebel installation. A shower of dirt and Calcite particles showered the cave interior.

"Damn it! They found us! Fast! Go to the emergency tunnels! Hurry!"

A series of deafening shock waves shook the ground above the cave, and then suddenly stopped. Everyone in the cave was silent.

Joan whispered softly.

"T-they found Sugar. They had to have...It's the only possibility."

A technician scanned the area around the base. Sugar was a foraging scout, whose job was to steal vegetables from the automated farms to the south. Fully automated agri-bots planted and harvested the crops. If they discovered any discrepancy between what was planted, and what was harvested, a killer sentry was wired in to find out why. The sentry had found Sugar. The infrared image on the technicians monitor should have shown a human form in the darkness, but instead displayed, in false color, a star shaped debris pattern of red hot pieces of human flesh scattered over a 50 foot area. A direct hit. Tears filled Joan's eyes. Sugar was her daughter.

"You must leave now! Hurry!"

Kelly and Jeter hastened back to the car, and headed back to the main highway.

Jeter was scared.

Kelly held his hand softly.

"Don't worry Derek. Just follow our instructions and we'll get through this. We'll get you home. But I must forewarn you. I cannot downplay this. The Overseers want to use you and the team as examples. Examples of a decadent, destructive chapter in the book of humanity that they want to publicly close forever. That's why they want you to play in Sky Dome. They want you to lose, perhaps to die, to prove the superiority of their "system".

Steadier, Jeter asked:

"How will we get the Sky Dome to fly into the wormhole?"

Kelly smiled.

"My father is the pilot. He'll take care of that end. I'll meet you and the team tomorrow at 8:00 A.M., so be prepared."

The tiny car pulled in front of Jeter's motel. Jeter lifted himself heavily from the seat, and headed up the stairs.

Jeter looked back at Kelly's car speeding off, the towering skyscrapers on the Lake, and the twinkling stars beyond. Far off to the West, storm clouds gathered on the horizon, faint flashes of lightning and thunder rumbling in the distance.

"I've got a bad feeling about this."

Yankees 2103 part 5


"We know how to get you home."

Jeter eyed her deeply, his expression unchanged.

"How?"

"Let's take a ride. I'll explain."

Jeter and Kelly Lansdowne left the bar and exited the hotel. They walked past row upon row of small, highly streamlined, 3-wheeled passenger cars. Kelly removed a key chain and blipped the lights on hers.

Jeter scanned the homogenous rows of vehicles, and could not discern any differences among them. They were exact carbon copies.

"What happened? They all look exactly alike."

Kelly blipped the control again, and the gull wing doors swung upward.

"Well almost. At least we get to pick a color."

Jeter slid his tall form into the little car, surprised at the roominess. Kelly dropped the visor down and looked into a small eyepiece.

"Wha-at is?"

"Retinal scan. Only I can start and operate the car. Although no one dares steal anything nowadays anyway."

"What do you mean?"

The little car moved forward in complete silence, not even a whirring of belts or fans, just the sound of the tires on the road.

"That's why I have you here. Let me try to explain the best that I can in the time we have."

Stealthily, they pulled out of the parking lot and merged onto a main road. Kelly tapped a few commands on a screen pad, and spoke aloud:

"Kelly Lansdowne. Destination South sector, exit 23. Authorization Foxtrot Charlie 0005."

The car responded, locking in autopilot. She released the wheel.

"As you may have already noticed, a lot has changed in the past 100 years. Technology has progressed at a much faster rate than during the 20th century due to computer modeling and engineering. This car, this city, the aircraft, freighters, construction and agricultural robots, everything, were designed from start to finish by computers. It only takes 5 years to develop a new technology where it once took 50 or 100 years in your time. But there have been other, more horrible changes too."

The car accelerated in silence to 175 mph on the perfect, unmarred highway. It was past midnight. There wasn't another driver on the road anywhere.

"In 2010 a nuclear war started between Japan and China due to a computer virus planted by Islamic extremist hackers. The Russians got drawn in, India, Pakistan, and in a matter of 8 hours, the civilized world east of Poland no longer existed. Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas were spared. This left a power vacuum in the Middle East, and soon the United Jihad Front,or U.J.F, had acquired nukes and managed to deliver them to the U.S. aboard cargo vessels. New York city, San Francisco, Washington, and New Orleans were completely destroyed by ship delivered Hydrogen Bombs in a single coordinated attack in 2012. A full-scale retaliation destroyed the U.J.F's Middle East bases in Saudi Arabia and Iran. The U.J.F attacked Israel in turn, who also fired missiles back, both were wiped from the face of the Earth."

Thunderstruck, Jeter stared blankly, trying to allow the words to sink in as true.

"Once the pieces were picked up, and a degree of stability was restored, Cleveland became the new capitol city. The population of the country moved to the interior. The cities became walled in fortresses, the countryside empty except for farms run entirely by agricultural robots. Life outside the cities is strictly forbidden, and violators are killed on site. New York, Washington and the other coastal cities were so radioactive, they could not be rebuilt."

Jeter thought of New York, his wife, Manhattan...Yankee stadium.

"D-dear God, is this true? Or is this some kind of terrible nightmare?"

Kelly laughed softly.

"If that's not enough, there's more. A 21st century geneticist, Kathleen Lamping, had discovered a way to modify human behavior through genetic splicing. Unknown to her, her discovery would be used for evil purposes. All undesirable behavior, so to speak, has been programmed out of people around the world. No one commits crimes, or gets angry, or even experiences joy or elation. They serve one purpose, to act as productive worker drones for the Overseers"

Jeter tilted his head quizzically.

"The Overseers are the ruling elite, a group of 50 or 60 thousand in America and Europe, ex-military, rich oilmen, politicians, and genetic science industry insiders who seized power and critical technology after the attacks. They control mankind like Caesar did the ancient Romans. Like my father and I, They did not receive the genetic modifications, they are 'normal', if you excuse the term. Those shots you were given at the airport are meant to transform you and the team as well."

Jeter, face contorted in panic, grabbed the bandage on his arm and tore it off. Kelly quickly touched her hand lightly to his cheek.

"Don't worry. It takes several months for the agent to take effect. We have plenty of time before that happens."

The car began to slow. It came to a rolling stop in front of a high brick wall. Kelly tapped a few commands, and to Jeter's awe, the wall sunk into the ground, allowing them to pass. Kelly held the steering wheel.

"No computer guidance after this point. We're in Indian country."

The roads became rough, and uneven, as they trundled uneasily into the night.

"A small group of rebels, called The Tibet Rebellion, have managed to stay out of detection in the southern part of Ohio. That's where we are headed now."

"How were you able to get out of the city?"

"Good question. My father is 'working' for the Overseers -we are rebels- Okay, Derek, this is where you come in."

The car slowed to a stop in front of a small abandoned house. Kelly took a flashlight out of her purse. They got out and began to walk.

A tall bearded man and small, dark featured woman dressed in linen robes greeted them. They led them into a small culvert and into a drainpipe. They walked, hunched over, for several hundred feet, before emerging into a small, poorly lit cavern.

"Derek, this is Joan and David. They are the leaders of the Tibet rebellion. They have been expecting you."

Jeter and the man and woman exchanged greetings, and sat down at a small table. Around them, dozens of workers were programming computers, whispering commands on transceivers, or instilling samples into beakers and test tubes in the dim cavern light.

David walked over to a technician and picked up two digital memory sticks off of the table.

"Derek, listen carefully."

He handed the sticks to Jeter.

"The fate of mankind is literally in your hands."

Jeter gingerly held the sticks in his palm.

"And just what do you want me to do?"

The man eyed Jeter apprehensively.

"We want you to play baseball. Do you think you can handle that?"

A boyish grin transformed Jeter's somber expression.

"Yeah, I think I can do that."

Yankees 2103 part 4

Exhausted, Jeter tossed his bag on the floor and lie down on the bed. He picked up a remote control from the nightstand, and flipped the 'on' button.

Abruptly, a 60 by 60 inch portion of the silver-white wall facing the bed suddenly came to life. The giant screen was perfectly disguised in the wall. Jeter was stunned by the incredible resolution; he could not detect any distortion whatsoever.

Awestruck, he flipped through a few channels until he stumbled on a baseball game. Tossing two pillows behind his back, he began following the action on the screen, and it was obvious that something was very, very strange about the way the game was being played.

He couldn't believe what he was seeing on the screen.

Joe Torre, cap in hand, rubbed his brow uneasily as the magnitude of their situation became increasingly clear. A knock on the door produced his roommate, David Wells. Wells tossed his gear and sat next to Torre, the same dazzled, expressionless stare in his eyes. A long moment passed as they sat in silence.

Torre came to life:

"Something isn't right, David, I've got a chill down my spine I can't shake."

Wells, nursing a hangover, rubbed his aching head.

"Well, yeah, Joe, outside of the fact that were 100 years in the future, and we don't have Marty and the Doc to take us home in the DeLorean, I'd say I feel pretty, well..."

Torre interjected.

"That's not what I mean. Put that behind you, those cards are already on the table. What I mean is this quarantine thing. You would think they would be treating us as heroes coming home. Why the cold reception? That son-of-a-[...] Hernandez almost pulled a gun on us. David, you're the teams computer Guru, take a stab on the laptop on the table, see what you can dig up."

Wells gingerly picked up an ultra thin laptop from the table and carefully pried it open.

"Wow, suckers light, must weigh less than a pound. Let's see, it looks like the layout of the keys haven't changed much in 100 years."

Wells tapped a power key and the laptop came to life.

"Wow! Look at the resolution, it looks like real life!I mean there's no graininess at all! O.k., this icon says 'internet', there..."

Wells began typing on the keypad in silence. Several minutes passed, then almost an hour. Torre waited in anticipation.

"Cue me in David, I can't take it any longer."

Wells got up from the table and poured 2 tumblers of scotch from the complimentary bar, and handed one to Torre.

"Have a drink, Joe, you're gonna need it!"

Back in his room, Jeter found a special function key that allowed him to pull up player statistics. He gradually became adjusted to the tables on the screen, and found a column that allowed him to enter team years and rosters. He typed 'Yankees 2003' and tapped the Enter key.

Wells sat next to Torre and placed the laptop on his knees.

"Look at this. I searched for our team on the Internet, and here's what I found. It says that the 2003 Yankees were lost in an Ohio thunderstorm and were presumed dead, as the wreckage of the plane was never found. 1 year elapsed before a new New York Yankees was assembled by George Steinbrenner in May, 2005."

Torres laughed softly to himself.

"Ol' George didn't skip a beat, did he?"

"Yea, rat bastard. But it says here that the plane was never found. They guessed that it may have crashed into an inland lake, or flew under radar and dissapeared into Lake Erie. In any case, the mystery was never solved. Until now."

Joe took the last sip from his glass and poured another from the bottle.

"Fill up, David, I've got some suspicions I want to investigate. This is going to take a while."

Getting the hang of the remote, Jeter flipped up and down over the categories and subcategories. The familiar roster of the 2003 Yankees appeared on the screen. All of the familiar names of his teammates appeared. He typed in his own. At the bottom of the menu was a 'hologram' icon. He selected it and a 10-inch high, lifelike hologram appeared over a silvered disk mounted on the floor beneath the screen. Jeter smiled. It was he. He tapped 'audio', and a narration began:

"New York Yankees short stop Derek Jeter, regarded by many of his contemporaries as the one of the most consistent power hitters in baseball, met a tragic, untimely death in a 2003 plane crash. Incredibly, the whole New York Yankee ball club team was lost when the Boeing 747 chartered to transport them from Detroit to Cleveland disappeared over central Ohio without a trace."

Jeter clicked the off key, the screen and hologram slowly fading from view.

"It's all true then. This isn't some weird dream or publicity stunt or something. Everything the FBI told us was true."

A soft knock on the door brought Jeter back to the present.-His appointment with the girl that gave him the note. He meekly opened the door and looked up and down the hall, but could see no-one. There was a suit hanging on the doorknob. He brought it in his room and changed, a poor fit. The suit was made from a material similar to silk, and after a few moments, contracted and expanded to perfectly fit his form. Jeter brushed a speck of lint from the arm:

"Nice. Real nice."

He looked inside the breast pocket, found a map of the hotel, silently closed the door behind him and headed downstairs.

The woman was sitting at a table in the lounge, sensuously nursing a cocktail, strawberry hair softly hiding her emerald green eyes.

"Hello Derek."

Jeter sat down and stared coldly.

"Who are you? What do want with me? I want some answers, and I want them now! What..."

The woman softly touched her finger to Jeter's lips and hushed.

"Shhh, there's time for that. Let me just look at you for a while. You might say I am an adoring fan. It isn't often a girl gets to meet her knight in shining armor."

Jeter firmly, hesitantly, brushed her hand aside.

"I-I-m a married man. I love my wife..."

Jeter lurched abruptly from his chair, spilling her drink, and started away.

The woman laughed softly.

"Come back Derek. Answer this, Derek, just where are you going to GO?"

The words took effect and Jeter slowed and stopped. He hesitated, coyly brushed his hair, and returned to the table.

"What's your name?"

The woman smiled softly.

"Kelly, Kelly Lansdowne. Sit down Derek. We have a lot to talk about."

Yankees 2103 part 3


An anxious hour passed as the 747 sat alone on the tarmac. At last, a motorized docking vehicle trundled to the front hatch of the plane, and smoothly locked in place. The door opened, and a group of three armed, blue suited men entered.

"Good morning, gentlemen. My name is Robert Hernandez, I'm an agent with the FBI. We know who you are. We did a detailed analysis of your plane. Welcome home."

The three men stepped gingerly into the plane, an astonished look on their faces as they eyed the Yankees, the flight attendants and the interior of the fuselage. The whole plane was quiet.

"Please stay in your seats. We need to confer with the Air Force. We will return shortly, and take you to a hotel. Please be patient."

Relief pitcher Mariano Rivera jumped forward wildly, barely restrained by his teammates:

"Estimado Dios! lo que acontece!"

A sudden cacophony of voices burst forth, seemingly every team member and flight attendant shouting at once.

Joe Torre shot from his seat.

"What the hell do you mean, "welcome home"?! We want to know what's going on, and where the hell are we!"

Hernandez waved his hand, motioning everyone to sit down, at the same time reaching inside his vest at a hidden pistol.

"We need to interview the pilot and navigator. Everyone will be filled in after we sort things out. Now sit back down!"

Jeter eyed the lakefront nervously from his seat. Giant hovercraft roared back and forth across the lake, their passengers and crew clearly visible in the rising morning sun. He estimated at least a thousand people on board, maybe more.

The three men entered the cockpit and closed the door behind them.

"Captain Berry, I presume?"

Berry mustered a cautious handshake.

"Where are we?"

"You're in Cleveland, captain. We have detailed knowledge of who you are, and when you left Detroit on September 2, 2003. You are United Airlines flight 6389, chartered to shuttle the New York Yankees to Cleveland. Well, here you are but you might say you arrived a little late."

Berry looked over the towering buildings on the lakefront, and the massive, low profile freighters, barely visible above the waterline, dashing at enormous speeds across the silvery surface of Lake Erie.

"How late? What has happened? We hit that vortex, and something strange happened. If this is Cleveland, it's not the Cleveland we're familiar with."

Berry slowly rose from his seat

"W-what year is this?"

Hernandez paused, producing a small portable computer from his pocket.

"2103"

Several moments passed as Berry and Steele allowed the notion to sink in.

Hernandez typed in a few commands on the computer's keypad, and a holograph of a swirling vortex appeared a few inches above the horizontal screen.

Cleary startled, navigator Steele murmured in a barely audible voice:

"Thats it! That's the thing we ran into to, w-what?"

Hernandez flipped a few keys and a schematic diagram of the vortex popped up.

"This is what you ran into, real monster, huh? It's a wormhole. I'm not a physicist, but the way it was explained to me; these things open up on certain date and time, and under certain conditions. We think that as the earth revolves around the sun, it passes through an area of instability in the space-time fabric. The colliding storm fronts you ran into over central Ohio just happened to coincide with the correct time and date, and, for 20 minutes or so, the energy released by the storm created the necessary conditions for the wormhole to open up. We've traced this freak event back in history. The last time was the same date and time in 1925."

Steele and Berry looked at each other blankly, as the reality of their situation became clear. Their wives, families, friends, culture, everything they had, was dead and gone.

"J-just our luck."

Berry's eyes lit up:

"Can we get back? Can you predict when and where the next disturbance will occur? Can we go back in time as well as forward?"

Hernandez snapped the laptop closed and put it away.

"I don't know. But I believe we have some people who will be able to answer that. In the mean time we need to get you and the passengers off the plane. We need to quarantine you for a while. We don't want to risk reintroducing any viruses or pathogens back into society that were eradicated decades ago."

"Understood."

"In any case, relax. Everything will be just fine."

A tear welled up in Berry's eyes. Hernandez didn't have to ask why.

A low-profiled shuttle bus stealthily approached the plane, and slowed to a noiseless stop. Joe Torre and his Yankees boarded, and drove back toward Hopkins. Jeter looked up at the towering spires disappearing in the morning haze. Thousands of tiny passenger cars rolled silently in perfect formation on the 16 lane, pink-hued expressway, as flocks of birds do when alerted to danger. It was clear they were computer controlled, as human reactions were simply not capable of such prehensile maneuvering. They arrived at Hopkins, and stopped near an isolated gate covered in plastic tenting. They were being quarantined. The Yankees unboarded the shuttle, and were led into a series of plastic windowed, inflatable rooms. Medics, wearing biological suits that made them resemble astronauts, led the team into a laboratory area.

Jeter sat down. Hours passed as the medics drew blood and gave injections, all without saying a word.

Joe Torre looked events over with darting eyes. He paused, leaned over to Alfonso Soriano.

"Hey, did you notice that the three FBI agents aren't in here with us? They were exposed to us. They should be in here too."

Finally, they were given the all-clear, and were told they were going to be taken to a hotel, but were informed their activities would be restricted and monitored.

Jeter grabbed his bag and started off down the hall. As he rounded a corner a stunning blond woman stepped abruptly in front of him, and thrust a folded piece of paper in his hand. She whispered:

"Open it later"

She continued down the hall.

When they got to their rooms, Jeter closed the door and sat on the bed. He unfolded the note.

It said:

MEET ME AT 11:00 IN THE LOUNGE. I HAVE A KEY AND WILL UNLOCK YOUR DOOR.

Yankees 2103 part 2


Joe Torre pounded frantically on the cockpit door.

"What in God's name is going on? Let me in!"

Captain Berry opened the door.

"That's what we'd like to know, Joe. Calm down and sit back down. When we figure things out we'll fill you in."

Torre returned to his seat, pulling his cap tightly over his eyes.

"Try all frequencies, Chuck. Maybe we lost our transmitter antenna. If that doesn't work, try your damn cell phone."

Steele's eyes lit up

"Jack! Lookout!"

A giant skyscraper loomed a few thousand feet ahead in the darkness, its crystalline shaped form illuminated by thousands of dazzling white lights. Berry kicked hard right rudder, throwing the 747 into a tight sideslip. A cacophony of screams arose from the Yankees, as the plane attained zero G, and slowly leveled out again.

"My God, what's our altitude? Altimeter says Angels 6000, but that CAN'T be right. That would make that building over a mile high!"

Steele checked low band ground radar.

"S-sir, that's a correct figure sir, that building is over 6000 feet high!"

"How can that be, there isn't a building in the whole world that tall. Maybe..."

Berry trailed off as the rising sun began softly illuminating the landscape below. Not one, but 6 giant skyscrapers, over a mile high, hugged the Lake Erie coastline. Row upon row of smaller buildings, 2500 feet or so, fanned inland in a radial pattern, close along the banks of the Cuyahoga River. The city of Cleveland, once a small speck on the northern great lakes coast was a sprawling Megalopolis, panoramic, reaching south into Ohio further than the eye could see.

The planes autopilot suddenly kicked to life, seizing the controls. The radio suddenly locked and a booming voice shook the cockpit.

"Historical aircraft please copy. What the HELL are you doing approaching Hopkins, and where did you come from? You running stealth on that monster? We're routing you to Forbes field on the lakefront. You've got a lot of explaining to do once you hit the tarmac!"

As the autopilot over flew Hopkins, Berry knew something very, very strange had occurred. The 2-mile long runways, once visible from 15 miles away, were gone. The airport was a small, one-mile square dot, with dozens of 400 foot or so diameter white circles painted on it. Berry looked closely, and could see why. All of the aircraft landing at Hopkins were VTOL, or vertical take off and landing, but were much, much larger than anything he had seen before. The body and wings were triangular. The enormous aircrafts were about 300 feet from wingtip to wingtip. Some were nestled tightly inside the circles. Others were hovering, approaching the circles, levitating, than slowly sinking to the ground.

"Jack, are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Yeah, were not in Kansas anymore."

Jeter, now thoroughly shaken, lifted the window shade again, with a trembling hand. The Cleveland he knew was gone. A sprawling spider work of roads, behemoth towering skyscrapers and brightly illuminated 40 lane highways formed an orderly, congested latticework in the soft light of the morning sun.

Jason Jiambi, rising a few feet above his seat, pensively eyed his teammates.

"Hey, something is really, really weird here. That's lake Erie, and that's exactly where Cleveland is supposed to be, but this city looks like it belongs in a science fiction magazine."

Torre shot in:

"Exactly. Look over there, that's the Detroit end of the lake to the west, and there's Canada to the north, but it looks like a third of lake Erie has been filled in and developed. Look at the height of those towers, and the city is 5 times as big as I remember it, and everything looks so new."

The great 747, seized by remote autopilot, overflew Hopkins, gently sloped east on the artificial lake front and began a slow descent toward a worn and rutted runway stretching along the linear, concrete shoreline.

Jeter took his cell phone out of his gear and dialed his wife. The phone beeped 3 times and disengaged. He dialed 911, the same.

The 747 touched down and rolled out to a gentle stop.

I wrote this 12 part series back in 2003. The premise? The New York Yankees get transported into the future and battle super villains, Joe Torre and Derek Jeter style! Here is part 1 of 12, only on MyFox8!

Yankees 2103 part 1

 

The waning days of summer in the Ohio River valley are ones of great meteorological paradox. A tropical gush of Gulf air often rushes through the flat, glacial worn terrain, where it collides with advancing ice burgs of frigid Canadian air called "Clippers". The resulting collision is often one of great violence, as the Goliath air masses engage, creating winds of 150 mph, great torrential rains, tornados, rolling thunder and great flashes of lightning, briefly illuminating the sultry, fetid hills.

The indigenous Iroquois Indians are said to have created elaborate rituals to ward off these great late summer storms, and believed something terrible was brought about in their passing. As is often true, the superstitions of the savage are often rooted in scientific fact.

Yankees head coach Joe Torre tapped a pencil against his teeth apprehensively. He had plenty to worry about. New York just came off of the receiving end of a 4-0 sweep by the lowly Detroit Tigers, and Roger Clemens was out for 6 weeks with a broken thumb.

Their 10 game lead over Boston in the AL east had slipped to 1 game, and the upcoming series with the red-hot Indians didn't assuage his aching head and tired nerves either.

Neither did the weather.

Great flashes of lightning speckled the graying September 2nd night sky. Derek Jeter, not a big fan of flying, shuttered his window and fingered a baseball nervously. Turbulence bumped and jostled the great Boeing 747 like a railroad car. The passengers were very quiet.

"Man I hate flying. I just can't get used to the idea. Just ain't natural."

Jeter withdrew a well-worn photo of his wife from his shirt pocket and playfully snagged a French fry off of Andy Pettit’s tray.

"Ahhh,no sweat. As much as we're in the air, I lost interest years ago. Just turn up your oxygen, and stop stealing my fries dammit!"

Jeter mustered a weak grin and put the photo of his wife away.

He adjusted his head rest and fell into a fitful sleep.

Dreaming, he found himself atop a large rocky crag, looking down into a canyon far below. On the horizon, the distant light of an ancient steam locomotive shimmered in the distance.

FLASHBACK

September 2, 1925. The captured German Zeppelin Shenandoah had just departed Lakehurst, N.J. on an extended publicity tour of the Midwest. Captain Zachary Lansdowne eyed his flight orders uneasily. An Ohio native, he knew the fury that Midwest late summer storms could unleash, and was adamant against flying a 680 foot bag of helium gas into the churning masses of colliding air. He voiced his discontent adamantly, as a doomed man would. His plea fell on deaf ears. The Navy wanted a show.

And a show the Shenandoah was. Over 200 yards long, it was handed over to the U.S. by the German general staff in 1920. It was designed to drop bombs on England, but was converted into a long-range reconnaissance dirigible by the Navy.

Non-flammable Helium was used in place of dangerous Hydrogen, but it made the massive blimp scarcely safer. Zeppelins were oversized, and underpowered. A stiff breeze could send them careening out of control. Shenandoah had already had two brushes with death. She lost her nose to a strong gust at a Lakehurst mooring mast, and was brought about and landed, luckily, by 17 maintenance men who happened to be on board. The second event nearly drove her into mountains above Arizona.

Neither compared with the violence of an Ohio late summer storm, and Lansdowne knew it. He braced himself uneasily against the fragile gondola framework, the droning throb of the massive diesel engines drowning out thought and senses.

On board the American Airlines 747, navigator Chuck Steele tapped the Doppler screen nervously.

"What do you make of that, Jack? It looks like a damn hurricane, only 3-4 kilometers in diameter, a low pressure cell can't possibly be that small. Can it be a tornado?"

Captain Jack Berry leaned to his right.

"No way, too big. I'm getting wind shears of 350 mph plus. They don't even make them that fast in Kansas. Correct heading to vector 270, reduce speed to 450. I wanna go around this thing Chuck."

"Roger, bearing 270, speed reduced. If you see Dorothy and Toto on that thing, let me know."

Several minutes passed as the huge plane made gentle slopes, left and right.

"When we get to Cleveland I want to call Wendy and the kids. I missed Mark's birth day, and I'll never live it down..."

Chuck Steele shot gunned in:

"Hold on!! I've got that vortex at 270! That damn thing is following us, Jack! range 10 clicks, angels 25,000!"

Back on board the Shenandoah, the great lumbering airship plummeted to 500 feet, and suddenly shot upward unexpectedly to a height of 6,000 feet, well above normal operating altitude.

"Vent gas!" Lansdowne barked "We've got to bring her down!"

The Shenandoah would not comply, a huge tearing sound and 7000 gallons of ballast water drenched the Ohio countryside, tossing the airship higher into the churning columns of air.

"What in God's name IS that?"

Lansdowne pointed a trembling finger past first mate Charles Rosendahl.

"Dear God sir, I don't know!"

On board the 747, Jeter, jostled awake by turbulence, felt the huge aircraft change direction and tremble beneath him. He swallowed hard, his throat tight and dry.

"I've got a bad feeling about this."

The huge 747 rolled left and right, dropping, then rising, trying to avoid the onrushing vortex, seemingly bent on devouring the ship. The engines screamed as their massive horsepower nudged the 500,000 lb mass of aluminum and steel to and fro.

"I can't lose it, I'm not sure what this thing is, but hang on! Chuck, tell the team to prepare for a crash and radio Cleveland Hopkins!"

A swirling purple sky suddenly emblazoned into a blinding white light. The interior of the great jet went dark, then sudden silence, not a sound.

The Shenandoah was in grave trouble.

Lansdowne fell to the floor of the crude gondola, breaking his wrist.

"We must lose altitude! Change heading North Northwest. Get us away from that thing!"

The helm would not, and could not, comply. The huge fragile airship could not contend with the terrible shearing forces like the 747 could. The airship rose, split in two, and dove 6000 feet into the Ohio countryside. The second halve rose again. With a sharp metallic crack, the gondola broke loose and plummeted to earth, carrying Lansdowne and his crew to their death.

The date, September 3, 1925. 4:20 A.M.

Navigator Steele loosened an iron grip on his side arms.

"W-what time is it sir?"

Captain Berry checked his panel chronograph and compared it to his wristwatch.

"I've got 4:20 A.M. that was real close. My God, we've got to get a data recording off of the boxes after this is done. We almost didn't make it. I want to thank Mr. Boeing personally for building one damn tough airplane. Chuck, get me Hopkins. I wanna have ground emergency on standby. I don't know if we tore up anything."

"Yes sir. Sir, this is odd, the frequencies are all dead. Nothing. I can't get an auto lock anywhere. I'm switching to military band."

"I see that. Everything is dead. I'm going down to angels 6000 to get a visual."

Jeter, regaining a fraction of his composure, meekly pried the window shade up and peered into the night. The lights of a great city lit up the gloom below.

"Andy, look at this. Something's not right."

Pettit peered into the abyss.

"That ain't Cleveland Derek, I know Cleveland, and that ain't Cleveland."

The Cleveland Indians official history states that the name "Indians"  was chosen in 1915 to honor a Native American named Louis Sockalexis who had played for them briefly when they were known as the Cleveland Spiders. Chief Wahoo went through two phases, a cartoonish caracture originating in 1946, and then the classic revision in 1950 which still appears on players jerseys today.

Don't mess with Chief Wahoo. He's as much a part of the history and tradition of the Cleveland Indians as Nap Lajoie, Bob Lemon, and Bob Feller. Recent liberal PC thuggery describing The Chief as "racist" are merely attempts by embittered minorities to assault America's technologically superior, dominant European ruling socio-political culture. Hmmm. White Man top dog. Everyone want to knock top dog down....ug.

Sorry Charlie, Wahoo, and America's technologically superior, dominant European ruling socio-political culture stays! Go Tribe!

 

 

The Chief 1946-1950

The Chief 1950-present

It's very difficult to select athletes from different points in time and match them against each other, as athletic training and nutrional awarness has changed dramatically over the years.

Looking back to the science of athletics of the 1920's, and comparing it to that enjoyed by athletes in 1960's or later, it's clear that Jack Dempsey could easily be crowned the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time, including Ali or Tyson. If Dempsey were pitted against any boxer in any equal time frame he would win. Dempsey beat Jack Johnston; he could have easily beaten Ali.

 

Bulldog-Jawed "Manassas Mauler" Jack Dempsey. Best boxer ever?