Brown Gets Hairbrained Scheme; Dempster Harnesses Lightning (cont’d. from below)

CHICAGO–Some Cubs fans thought that closer Ryan Dempster may have caught lightning in a bottle when he saved 33 games for the Cubs in 2005. It’s too bad that Dempster didn’t hang on to that bottle, because he could have used it to generate the 1.21 jigowatts of electricity necessary to send him back to 2005, his one bright year in an otherwise mediocre career.

Dempster’s good friend Dr. Emmett Brown, after hearing that Cubs G.M. Jim Hendry was going to announce at a press conference that God could strike him down with lightning if there was something wrong with Mark Prior, came up with a scheme to harness that lightning. At first, Brown didn’t believe that Dempster was good in 2005. Brown asked Dempster, “2005? Who’s the Cubs’ manager in 2005?” Dempster replied, “Dusty Baker,” to which Brown said, “Dusty Baker?! The idiot?!”

Dempster was finally able to convince Brown to help by showing him his 2005 baseball card.

Dempster’s 2005 card as it appeared at the time he showed it to Brown.

The top of Dempster’s head appeared to be fading from the picture. According to Brown, Dempster’s career was being “erased…from existence.” This was enough to convince Brown that Dempster was telling the truth.

Brown’s plan was to hang a wire between the press conference microphone and Hendry’s “extra strong hold” belt buckle, which Dempster would drive past at 88 m.p.h. just as Hendry said that there is nothing wrong with Prior. A lightning rod attached to Brown’s time-traveling De Lorean and connected directly into the flux capacitor would need to hit the wire at the same time the lightning bolt hits Hendry. According to Brown, “As long as Dempster hits that wire with the connecting hook at precisely 88 miles per hour, the instant the lightning strikes Hendry, everything will be fine.”

Sorry his ass is not to scale. I didn’t have enough material for it.

Once the press conference started, everything was in place. Dempster waited to drive past Hendry in the De Lorean. However, Brown experienced difficulties in attaching the wire to Hendry’s belt buckle. “There’s just so much pressure being put on that buckle,” Brown said. “I was afraid the thing was going to snap and send me flying.”

Great Scott!

Brown was, however, able to hook the wire between the press conference microphone and Hendry’s buckle just before Dempster drove past in the De Lorean, sending him back to his own time. That magical 2005 summer spent with the 79-83 Chicago Cubs.