Beagle League Confidential Episode 29
September 8, 2003
Written by Dan Bogey

(Read the Previous Beagle League Confidential Episodes here)

The most startling thing I noticed as I drove my hostage around the outskirts of town with the simulated barrel of a pistol (an effect achieved by a roll of Mentos in my coat pocket) aimed in his general direction was the way his demeanor, his diction, even his posture immediately improved. If not for fears of the negative legal ramifications, I would urge all parents, teachers and others in a position of authority over teenagers to purchase a weapon or, as I did, approximate the semblance of one as an aid in dealing with recalcitrant youngsters.

I asked a couple of simple questions to get a check of the sound level and to make sure the tape recorder was functioning properly and then got down to the issue at hand of gathering the evidence I needed to convict Biggie of the capital fantasy baseball offense of collusion.

The truth came out in spilling out in stunning detail, surpassing what even I had imagined for its depth of duplicity. It seems that Jason was merely the latest in a string of youngsters that Biggie had taken under his wing after meeting them at one of the various civic functions he shamelessly attended as part of his relentless self-promotion and introduced them to the world of fantasy baseball. When I heard of this excessive interest in teenaged boys, I immediately steered my questioning to investigate a Michael Jackson type angle, but Jason assured me that nothing of that nature had ever occurred to him or any previous Biggie protégé. In fact, Jason claimed that Biggie was something of a ladies man, often indulging in intimate entertaining in one of the foreboding rooms in the funeral home.

But despite the disappointment of being unable to nail Biggie on a pedophilia charge, Jason was quite forthcoming with the details of how Biggie was able to maintain his spot atop the Beagle League standings year after year. Each year he would recruit a kid, one like Jason, with little or no interest in baseball, pay him a few bucks for his time, give him the entry fee and a comprehensive list of players (including four or five proven, dependable players) to acquire at the draft, and act like he was doing the league a favor in finding a new owner who would pay up and not offer much competition. The kid was given a phone number on the league roster sheet that was set up to an answering machine, if one could reach it at all, that was accessed by Biggie. Thus, as in my case, if a trade included a player Biggie wanted, he would have Jason to consummate the deal and have another chip available in his unofficial player pool. More often than not Biggie would simply get a great player or two for the stretch run or perhaps pick up some up and coming free agent that his lackey was able to snap up due to his perpetually low position in the standings. At the end of the year the kid would receive a bonus depending on how much his contributions had aided the Biggie cause.

Perhaps Biggie was a baseball historian and had taken a tip from the New York Yankee teams of the late 1950s and early 1960s when they used the Kansas City Athletics as their personal farm team and acquired such stars as Roger Maris and Ralph Terry. Some Yankee haters of the day might even have bought into the otion that New York was paying KC off. But in this post-Watergate era of full disclosure and 24 hour sports talk radio it would never fly. I was determined that it would fly no longer in the Beagle League either.

Jason finished his statement and I played the whole thing back, just to be sure I had every juicy detail. All was in order and I clicked off the tape recorder just as we pulled up to Jason's house. He looked at me with relief and eagerly hopped out of the car. Before he could slam the door I called out to him in my gruffest voice and he stopped nervously in his tracks and tentatively turned back toward me. He winced when he saw my hand slowly exit my pocket as I said with a smile, "Mentos?"