Cleveland at Twins. Twins 6, Cleveland 2.

The security guard wasn't sure he could believe his eyes. It was the middle of the night, and he'd seen something in the windows of the building across the street. Yes, flashlights! There were flashlights moving around in the basement of the Metrodome. This particular security guard wasn't the type of guy to interfere, but something just seemed wrong. What were five guys with flashlights doing moving around the Twins clubhouse at 2am?

Around that time, a security guard inside the Metrodome noticed that the door connecting the Dome with the parking garage had been taped so it would not lock. Thinking nothing of it, he removed the tape, but when he went back he found the tape had been replaced.

Quickly, he called the police.

At 2:20 am, three plainclothes officers arrived on the scene. They careful made their way down the stairwell to the bowels of the Metrodome and found every door along the way had been taped. When they reached the basement, where the stairwell door leads directly to the Twins' clubhouse, they found it had been pried open.

The policemen entered the clubhouse and looked around and found nothing amiss, with the exception of an overwhelming smell of crawdad. But as they made their way toward the hallway, they heard a noise—someone was in Ron Gardenhire's office! They crept down the hall and entered the office and found five men dressed in black rummaging through Gardy's desk.

After the men were arrested, it did not take the police long to realize that this was no simple burglary. The men had been carrying bugging equipment. All five of them had aliases, and one was a high level scout for the Cleveland Indians. The Indians denied any knowledge of the affair, and the police were unable to connect the burglary to any larger organization.

Meanwhile, the local newspaper The Rochester Red Wing called up two young reporters, Brent Abernathy and Michael Ryan, to cover the story. The reporters thought they were covering another petty crime, until one day Abernathy got a strange phone call.

"You're on to something big," said a deep, old-sounding voice on the other end of the line.

"Who is this?" said Abernathy.

"A friend," said the voice. "I have information for you."

"What kind of information?" said Abernathy.

"Follow the money," said the voice.

"What do you mean? What are you saying?"

"Just follow the money, you nitwit!" the strange informant said. And then he hung up.

Abernathy ran over to Ryan. "I have a source!" he exclaimed. "He says this thing's huge."

"Who is it?" asked Ryan.

"I don't know," shrugged Abernathy. "Some old guy."

So, the young reporters looked into the bank accounts of the robbers and found a $25,000 check that had been made to the campaign of Cleveland pitcher Cliff Lee's son, who was running for president of his second grade class. The reporters called the author of the check, a Mr. Dustan Mohr of Denver, Colorado, who denied any knowledge of the break-in or the burglars. "I just wanted to help Cliff's kid get elected," he said. "I handed the check right to Cliff. I don't know what happened to it then."

Something smelled in the state of Cleveland. What did Cliff Lee know and when did he know it?

Abernathy and Ryan kept digging, aided by the mysterious source. When the source wanted to meet Abernathy, he would circle a page number in the reporter's newspaper, and when Abernathy wanted to meet the source he would move a flowerpot on his deck. They would then meet at a distant parking garage at three in the morning, and the source would give him dim hints on where to look next. One by one, the pieces started to come together—and they formed an arrow that pointed right to the Cleveland starting pitcher.

Then, one night, the source had shocking news.

"Your lives are in danger," he said.

Abernathy gasped. "Why? Because of the story?"

"No, dumbass. Because C.C. Sabathia is pitching tomorrow. He's crazy."

"Oh."

"Be careful," he said, then disappeared into the shadows.

One June night, the reporters went to the site of the break-in to keep an eye on their principal suspect who was the starting pitcher that night. Little did they know that their case would be blown wide open before their eyes.

It was the third inning. The Twins were behind 2-0 but had the bases loaded, and Torii Hunter strode to the plate. Hunter stared at Cliff Lee and shouted, "Hey, Cliff…Did you pay those guys to bug Gardy's office?"

The pitcher looked around. There was nowhere to run. "Um…yes," he said in a small voice.

Hunter put down his bat and shook his head. "Why the hell did you do that?"

"I just wanted to win!" exclaimed Lee. "I was scared!"

"Well, that's cheating," Torii Hunter said. "Cheating's bad!" Then he took Lee's first pitch and knocked it into the left field seats for a grand slam.

Lee could only nod. Hunter had made his point very effectively.

There is still one mystery left in the strange case of the Metrodome break-in. Who was this mysterious source who helped the young reporters along? Who had ties to the Cleveland organization but a loyalty to truth and justice? Who had the supple body to maneuver around parking lots at night? Who had the stamina to tip reporters day after day, sometimes out of the bullpen and sometimes as a starter? And who sounded so terribly, terribly old?

Readers, we may never know.