Where Do We Go From Here, Toledo?

by Chuckie Fairweather
Toledo NewsGopher Staff Reporter

The dog days of summer have arrived early here in the scenic city of Toledo, and it appears the Cow Tipper faithful would just as soon walk their dogs as pay to watch their once beloved team play baseball. The once electrified atmosphere here at Fifth Third Field in the heart of downtown appears to have blown a fuse as the team continues to lose while having ceased to show the signs of brightness that attracted so many of the city's baseball starved citizens to the park like moths to a flame mere months ago. Miserable perfomances from the highly touted young pitching staff along with an ice cold team presence at the plate has led everyone here in town, save a few drunken hecklers and unenthusiastic Little League teams, to forego any further trips out to the old ball yard and to turn their eyes from what, at this time, appears to be a pretty bleak immediate future for the team.

Add to the team's lackluster performance a preseason deal sending number one prospect Luke McFeely to Durham for underachieveing up and comers Ralph Towers and Josh Holzemer along with the more recent trade sending superstar Reggie Alexander to New Britain in exchange for relatively unknown pitching prospect Harry Tavarez, AAA 2B Lewis Corey and a marginal ML 3B in Mark Durbin and one has to believe the front office team here at Cow Tippers Central has created a definite recipe for box office disaster.

When asked about the recent Alexander deal, team president Jimmy Hank Carmichael was quoted as saying,

"Hell, son, I just pay the bills around here. I hire people to take care of those decisions and I have nothing but faith in my capable young GM...erm...whazhisname".'

When Whazhisname himself, 37 year old GM Timmy Tankwaters was asked about the state of the team, he replied,

"We would obviously rather win here in Toledo, but having seen that our young team isn't as ready to compete as we had hoped we have chosen to free up some money for next season where we can and start rebuilding further for the future. We recently Acquired the number 2 draft pick overall in Randy Gordon, who we are certain will be our SS of the future, and we are more than a little excited about this acquisition. We were also able to pick up a few other decent players in the draft, and with the addition of some of the prospects we've added through trade we feel the future is bright here in Toledo. We do wish it known, however, that we are under no circumstances giving up on the team we have put together over the previous offseason. We feel most of the players in our lineup are just coming into their own as ML ballplayers and we have the utmost confidence in the pitching rotation we have put together along with the coaching staff we hope will lead this organization out of obscurity. Now if you don't mind, I have work to do".

So there you have it baseball fans. Straight out of the horse's mouth. This season has basically been written off by Jimmy Hank and his team of (ahem) capable professionals. Start looking to the future, Toledans. Remember, we still have Albert Maduro and Joe Parkinson waiting in the Minor League wings and if you really start to delve deeper into the organization you can certainly see signs of what could become a very competiti........ah screw it. What a pile of crap. I need a beer.

Note from the Editor: The opinions expressed by the reporter are not necessarily the opinions of the management here at the Toledo NewsGopher. Send complaints or otherwise directly to Chuckie at cfair@newsgopher.org.