The Dinger Chronicles, Episode 001

First of all, I freely admit that I have no right to use Dinger's name in this story.  If the ownership of the team wants me to stop, I'll quickly comply. Until then, I'll churn out an episode from time to time. 

It’s great to be back in Denver!  I’m not a fan of cold weather or snow, so I enjoy my winters down in Key West - hanging out with Jimmy, eating cheeseburgers, and engaging in piecemeal hibernation.  However, there is such a thing as too much rest and relaxation, and it was nice to return to my job as dinovangelist for the Rockies.

The season got off to a rocky start.  When I opened my office door – balancing pizza and breadsticks in my other hand – I was buried in an avalanche of ping pong balls.  Some fool practical joker had filled the entire office with the blasted things.  I’m not going to name names, but he wears #19.

I was forced to eat my pizza in Jim Tracy’s office because of my own office being unsuitable for the purpose.  Jeff Francis tried to snag a piece when he thought I wasn’t looking (he loves Canadian bacon) but I growled at him and he backpedaled out of the office.

I returned to my own digs and got the bat boy to help clear the place of the unwanted spheres.  We got most of the mess cleaned up in a couple of hours, although they are still popping up from time to time.

When I finally turned the computer on, Windows told me that it needed to install 376 critical updates.  Holy cheese balls.  I gave up and called it a day (although I did snag some nachos and cotton candy from the snack bar on the way out – important ingredients for Dinger’s famous Cotton Nacho Stew).

I returned to the office the next day at the crack of noon.  I slogged through thousands of emails.  Most of them were selling “enhancement” products and pyramid schemes, but there was also some good stuff – like the announcement of Dinger bobble head night!  It’s about darned time.  I’m the longest tenured member of this team, and I get no respect.  Tulo, Helton, Walker – they all get talked about more than Dinger!

The other mascots had already started trash talking.  That stupid San Diego chicken was clucking about something.  Ha!  His goose will be cooked soon.  Mr. Met was loudly proclaiming that the Mets were going to win the World Series and giving himself credit for many of the offseason moves.  That dude has a really big head.

There was also some paperwork to deal with.  Apparently, there was a problem with my TPS reports.  I resolved that quickly.  No TPS report means no paycheck.  No paycheck means no corn nuts!  Dinger is not going to risk a corn nut outage.  The great corn nut famine of ’03 is still a disturbing memory.

When I finished up the office work, I headed down to the field to join the team.  They were doing sprints in the outfield, and I jumped into line.  I faced off against Jason Giambi, and I absolutely smoked him.  I didn’t win a single sprint last April – this is a clear sign that Dinger is in great shape to start the 2010 season!

There’s good chemistry on this team, and a lot of good players.  I look forward to giving you the inside scoop during the season.

If you like this ... you may like my other fiction writing.  I write a new fiction short story every Friday on The Casual Observer and have also published PDF collections of them (as well as some audio versions) at my store.  The stories run the gamut from humor to crime, and range from a few hundred words to 10,000+.  [Editors: feel free to remove or tone down the shameless self-promotion, if you wish]

If you don't like this ... my sincere apologies :)