Twins at Montreal. Twins 6, Expos 4.

There’s something funny going on in Montreal. A once-proud baseball franchise has devolved into a bad French movie, one where everyone talks about how life is merde and then dies at the end.

The situation is deeply sad. It involves players leaving the franchise almost as quickly as fans--including Bartolo Colon, Vladimir Guerreo, and Javier Vasquez. After a Herculean effort to stay in the race last year, the owners decided that they would not pay for the Expos to call up any minor leaguers in September, shooting an injury-ravaged team in the foot. And this year the Expos have devolved into the laughing stock of baseball. (And that includes the freakin’ Devil Rays.)

Yes, there’s something rotten in the state of Canada. Something’s going on, something bent of witchcraft or sorcery or…could it be…GHOSTS? After reviewing the evidence, Team Batgirl began to wonder if the Montreal Expos were, in fact, haunted. What other explanation could there be for their collapse?

To investigate, Team Batgirl hired a crack team of supernatural detectives.

Off to Montreal, Batgirl!

The gang immediately reported that Olympic Stadium certainly sounded haunted; ghostly cries kept emanating from the stands, despite the fact that no one was there. But they could uncover no more clues, so, to really get to the bottom of what’s going on, the detectives sent their fearless leader to pose as the starting pitcher for the Minnesota Twins.

Zoinks!

Surprisingly, Shaggy wasn’t awful. He was shaky at first, giving up a lead-off walk and allowing the run to score. But he seemed to find some kind of rhythm, perhaps fueled by the twelve foot meatball sub he’d had before the game. Though it could be argued that it was further sign of the haunting of the Expos that they weren’t able to do more against someone whose primary interests are avoiding danger and snacking.

Meanwhile, the starting pitcher for the Expos seemed to haunt the Twins for the first few innings. Livan Hernandez, who at 3-6 is certainly operating under some kind of curse, shut the batters down for six innings, until Doug Mientkiewicz corked a ball in the 6th. 3-1 Expos.

In the 7th, though, the ghosts came out.

Oh Livaaan? Boo!

Hernandez was so scared he walked Michael Cuddyer then served up a gopher to pinch hitter extraordinaire Matty Go Boom. Then in the eighth he gave a single to Sacré Lew, beaned Corey Koskie, and gave up a double to Torii Hunter. It was as if he’d been possessed, and maybe he had.

The game looked to be the Expos' to win the whole time; I mean Livan Hernandez against Shaggy Guerrier? How do you lose that game? There’s something supernatural going on here.

Or is there? There’s something awfully familiar about those ghosts. During the game the rest of the detectives did some research, and they found that the cause of the Expos' woes might be quite natural.

Hey, Nice Costume, Pohlad!

You see, the Expos are owned by the owners of the other 29 teams. They bought the Expos when Selig wanted to (spit) contract the team, hoping to make a profit. But there was no contraction. Now, the owners, for some strange reason, have defunded the Expos—if one were conspiracy-minded, one might think that a)the owners don’t want to spend any money and b) they enjoy letting another team develop players and sucking them up when that team can't afford to pay anymore and c)they don’t want a competitor to be any good. They blackmailed the Expos into playing in Puerto Rico again this season, and have brushed aside several offers from interested buyers so they can keep leeching off the team. And Bud Selig has sat by and let it all happen.

That's right! And I would have gotten away with contraction, too, if it hadn't been for you meddling kids!*

Sometimes, Shaggy, I think the owners don’t have baseball’s best interests at heart.

*Thanks to reader T&J for the better caption.