Bobby Don Southworth hired to lead Tribe

[RebelYell]

Sparse number of clues hinder ‘missing church girl’ investigation
A Parma girl who made a last-minute stop at a grocery store before joining her church’s youth group for a retreat has still not been heard from according to authorities.

Rebecca Elaine Novokovic, 19, never made it into the store and missed the 7 a.m. departure of the church bus that left for Pennsylvania on May 24. Her abandoned car was discovered just after noon on that day. There were no signs that she returned to her car with groceries and no witnesses at the store could confirm she ever entered the store.

Detectives have indicated there were no signs of a struggle anywhere in the parking lot.

“We have a lot of theories, but nothing substantial,” Parma police detective Chris Hamm said. “There’s nothing we can release that would help us solve this case other than continuing to distribute her picture and treating this like a missing-persons case – which is what it is.”

A former boyfriend was questioned early in the case, but has since been officially cleared by the police of any suspicion. According to her family, “Becky” Novokovic had not been involved with anybody seriously and was excited about attending the youth group’s retreat.

“There’s a lot of speculation about what happened,” Hamm said. “But the facts point to the girl leaving the grocery-store parking lot with someone else. There are no signs of violence and, unfortunately, the store’s surveillance cameras show only the front of the store. We can see her car pull through the parking lot from one side and then enter a row of cars and proceed out of the camera’s view.
Her car ended up parked in a row where it last seemed to be headed in the video and Miss Novokovic never appeared again, telling us that she never entered the store.”

Peter and Janice Novokovic have offered a reward for information that leads to finding their daughter. Through donations to the fund, a reward of more than $20,000 will be given to anyone who can help in the Rebecca Elaine Novokovic disappearance. Calls to the Plain Dealer missing-persons hotline regarding the case will be kept confidential.

Inside today’s Plain Dealer: The first-place Cleveland Indians open a six-game homestand at Jacobs Field. The American League’s best team, the New York Yankees, are in town for three games beginning with tonight’s bout between the Indians’ Kevin Millwood (12-8) and the Yankees’ Mike Mussina (8-6). The series concludes Sunday with Glove Day and then the Baltimore Orioles invade for three games beginning Monday evening.

[RebelYell]

Indians shackle Yankees’ sticks,
surge to sweep in front of 43,368
The glory days have returned to Cleveland.
A throng of 43,368 foot-stomping, broom-waving and drum-pounding Indians fans watched Bob Wickman put the finishing touches on the American League East-leading New York Yankees in a 4-1 victory on Sunday afternoon at Jacobs Field.

The Yankees made about as much noise with their final two outs against Wickman as they had all weekend against the sizzling Tribe. In 27 innings, New York scored 4 runs on 11 hits.

Cleveland extended its winning streak to eight games and opened up a 4½-game lead on the Chicago White Sox in the AL Central.

“Our pitching was superb,” Tribe skipper Bobby Don Southworth said. “You don’t have to do much more than look at the scores of the games to see how dominant our pitchers were. All three starters (Kevin Millwood, Cliff Lee and Jake Westbrook) pitched into the eighth inning in all three games and our bullpen got seven outs in three days without giving up a hit.
“ … Then, when you consider who those guys were in the other dugout, that makes this weekend all the better.”

The writing was on the wall for the Bronx Bombers on Friday night when Kevin Millwood twirled a four-hit complete-game shutout. Travis Hafner’s 22nd home run of the season came in the first inning and gave Millwood (13-8) all the cushion he would need. Coco Crisp tacked on a bases-loaded triple in the fifth inning to make it 5-0 and Cleveland coasted on its four-hit performance.

Millwood struck out nine, yielding four hits and two bases on balls.

The Indians thrilled 38,162 fans on Saturday with a 4-3 triumph. Lee (9-8) did not dominate the Yankees batters, but let his defense do a lot of the work.

Bernie Williams’ two-run homer in the sixth almost ruined Lee’s chance to get over the .500 mark for the first time this season. But Jose Morban’s second RBI of the afternoon broke the tie and put Lee in line for the win.

Chad Zerbe ascended the mound in the ninth and racked up his league-leading 32nd save. Kevin Brown (4-7) absorbed the loss.

“On Friday, a couple of our veterans came through with their sticks and Saturday it was the young guns,” Southworth said. “It’s been a nice mix all year with all of our bats throughout the lineup. There isn’t anybody on this club that doesn’t have the ability to drive in runs at any time. And just about all of them have a little pop in their bat. Just about any one of them can give us a long ball at anytime.”

Sunday’s capacity crowd saw Westbrook keep the Yankees in check for 8 1/3 innings on three hits. Carl Pavano (13-5) kept most of the Indians at bay, but Javy Herrera took advantage of one of his few starting opportunities by knocking in three runs.

Herrera went 2-for-2 with a pair of run-scoring singles and a sacrifice fly.

“It was almost perfect how the weekend played out,” Southworth said. “I just wish we had that play back in the eighth inning when [Hiser] got hurt.”

One of the Indians’ heroes on Saturday, Hiser suffered an injury to his rib cage when he dove for a fly ball in the eighth inning. Westbrook pitched around the threat and got an out in the ninth before turning the game over to Wickman.

“Jake really wanted to finish,” Southworth said. “I wouldn’t expect any of our starter to want to come out at a time like that. But the thing I’ve seen that I like about the guys on this club are they see the donut and they don’t get caught staring at the hole. They’re guys who, for the most part, see the big picture.”

The picture for the Indians is starting to shape up as one filled with postseason possibilities. Yet Southworth, who has led four teams to league titles, isn’t mentioning the “P” word.

“This was a nice step toward bigger things,” Southworth said. “But again, we can’t get caught up looking so far ahead that we trip over the next obstacle that’s in front of us.”

That obstacle is the Baltimore Orioles, who are in town for a three-game series beginning today.

[Y0DA55]

Yum! Love the multiple storylines!

[RebelYell]

The Cleveland Indians were in St. Petersburg, Fla., and that was the last thing that crossed Susan Caldwell’s mind on Wednesday, Aug. 17. She was busy dialing Rick’s cell phone to tell him that she had gotten the plane ticket he had sent her. He would pick her up at Hopkins International Airport around 11 p.m. Sunday and give her a place to stay. She laughed to herself as she realized she was going to Cleveland and not Cincinnati or Columbus.
She couldn’t keep any of those Ohio cities straight. But she was a doctor.

Rick had not been online lately, but that was not unusual. He had given Susan his cell phone number – a cell phone she didn’t even realize was only used for calls to and from Susan Caldwell. She left a message when Rick didn’t answer.

When “Rick” played back the message in the privacy of his own hotel room, he heard some excitement in Susan’s voice. She was going to have to start back to school with teachers’ conferences and in-service days a week from Thursday. This was going to be her last excursion before returning to work.

“Rick” smiled to himself as he thought how this might just be Susan’s last excursion. Period. End of vacation. End of story. End of Susan.

“Rick” always liked overkill.

On Friday, Aug. 19, he read with interest about the “missing church girl.” He even tried to think up a plan where he might be able to collect some of the reward money. But, he wasn’t sure the family would be willing to pay any reward money once they found their daughter.

The next three days were a blur as he spent more time thinking about Susan’s arrival. He wanted everything to be perfect.

Meanwhile, the team’s performance was almost perfect. That didn’t satisfy him, though. It did more to irritate him. He never understood why success caused him to feel so much contempt – even when he had a part in the success.
Some would say a major part.

On Sunday night, he cleaned up and went to get Susan at the airport. He offered to put her in a hotel room near the airport and she accepted. He put the room in her “married” name, Mrs. Rick Manning, and assured her that he was only looking out for her privacy. She would have to pay for nothing. He had plenty of spending money to cover the room and any expenses she might incur, including, if she wished, a rental car.

He had business to do on Monday afternoon, but asked her if she would accompany him for dinner at his place on Monday evening. She was very excited about the possibility and caught the overture of an overnight stay. She liked Rick more and more because he was quiet, unassuming and confident around her. He knew exactly what he wanted to do, but was never too pushy.
She didn’t mind being pushed sometimes and Rick had figured out just how to push her gently in the direction he wanted her to go.

Tuesday was going to be the tricky part. It was a night game. Should he be sick? Should he come out and tell her the truth about what he did for a living?

There was a way around this predicament, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to commit to it until he saw how things went with Susan on Monday night.

If she was willing, Susan would be completely under his control by the time he had to leave for the Lakefront on Tuesday. And just a few hours after Wednesday’s game, Susan would be gone.

[RebelYell]

For the day’s charade, I put on a suit and tie. I had called Susan before going to the hotel and took her to breakfast before leaving for “work.”

She wasn’t put off by my appearance or the things I had told her about my job. I was fairly sure that I wouldn’t be recognized in the hotel restaurant – they are often pretty empty by 9 or 10 in the morning – and I don’t live in this part of town.

In fact, living on the older east side of Cleveland, I had traveled almost 45 minutes on the freeway to get to the hotel. I was going to change into more casual attire on my way to the ballpark and then change into my real work clothes at the stadium. Coming back – at around 6 p.m. from an afternoon game – I planned to do the same thing.

Susan said she had some reading to catch up on and liked the idea of going to visit some of the stores by the airport. They were within walking distance and she wanted to do the independent thing. She would wait for me to come pick her up and then I would take her to my house for dinner.

Over breakfast, it became pretty clear that Susan and I were thinking along the same lines for the evening. I extended the invitation for her to stay. Tuesday’s game is scheduled to start at 7 p.m. and it’s my intention to spend every moment with her. Mainly, I wanted to be able to keep my eye on her.

The game Monday afternoon was over before it started. Miguel Tejada hit a three-run homer and Baltimore led 4-0 after the first inning. The Orioles went on to win, 6-2, breaking our eight-game winning streak.

The bright spots for us were that we had as many hits (8) as they did and Victor Martinez was 2-for-4 with an RBI triple in the second. The down side was that Jeremy Sowers failed to win his 10th game of the season.

Losing hardly did anything to ruin my plans. In fact, things were going exactly as I had hoped.

Susan and I had a wonderful evening. I’m not one to kiss and tell, but we frolicked until 3 a.m. in the master bedroom of my three-bedroom house. Upstairs is a mess, but downstairs is my pride and joy. Maybe I’ll show Susan around when we wake up tomorrow.

Susan Caldwell was very willing in all kinds of ways. There were moments – after we awoke and returned to what we were doing the night before – when I considered changing my ways completely and allowing Susan to become a very real and vital part of my life.

But I’m consumed by something else. I’ve convinced myself that Susan’s affection is a weapon of the enemy and that it must be disarmed. I am determined to see my plan through.

And so Tuesday’s session continued well into the early afternoon. Time was going to be a factor. I couldn’t be late to the ballpark, but I didn’t want to rush off and leave a loose end.

It wasn’t difficult to lure Susan into the basement. She was wearing one of my terrycloth robes that was gigantic on her. She didn’t care that it hung loosely on her and was coming off her at the shoulder. The main basement room was a well-furnished den and that’s where we continued to learn more about each other like hungry animals.

I had fixed Susan five drinks over the past 18 hours and she liked every one of them. She enjoyed the wine with dinner, an after-dinner margarita and then a glass of water in the middle of the night. This morning, she had a tall glass of orange juice and then later another glass of water.

Her next drink contained something more.

From my visit to see her a couple of weeks before, I knew she liked Dr. Pepper. I had a few cans in the refrigerator. I asked her if she would like one and then scurried upstairs to get it.
I didn’t want to leave her much time to investigate the other half of the basement.

I did want to have plenty of time to drop enough GHB into her drink to knock her out until sunrise. Even if we were somehow involved in the history of baseball’s longest game, I would still have time to get back home and take care of what I needed to do to finish my objective.

The GHB was easy to obtain. During a plane flight, I spoke with a man who was using it for his narcolepsy and, within a year, I had convinced my doctor that 1) I had narcolepsy and 2) that GHB was helping me control it.

Susan hadn’t disappointed me. She had left the comfort of the den and entered the other half of the basement. There wasn’t much there to see on the concrete floor. There was a washer and dryer, an industrial-sized sink and an old refrigerator. In the back half of the room was a large steel door that marked the entrance to my favorite room in the whole house.

“Curiosity killed the cat,” I said with a smirk on my face and her drink in my hand.
“Oh, I was just looking around,” she said playfully, her focus zeroed in on the huge, steel door. “You keep your bars of gold in there?”

[RebelYell]

Even with two layers of concrete bricks, the room was still a cell of 100 square feet. It was soundproof, bulletproof and, if I turned off the ventilation, air-proof. I had done some testing on it.

The testing came almost two months ago to the day. We were playing the Mariners and I was in the mood to make something happen.

Becky happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I knew Becky and had been attending her church. I waited by myself at the church parking lot where the kids were going to meet for their retreat on the morning of May 24. Somebody had to be the first one there that morning and all I needed was for it to be somebody who had come by themselves – and only by a couple of minutes ahead of everybody else.

She was the perfect person for the job. She was sweet, gullible and too willing to help. I told her that I had been sent up to the church to get a few things for the kids’ retreat. All I had was the money and needed somebody’s know-how. I asked Becky if she would follow me and she did.

After she got out of her car at the grocery store parking lot, I motioned for her to come over to my rental car. We were going to make a quick trip down the street for some donuts. She hopped right in and was never seen by anyone again.

She was caught completely off guard by the chloroform and, if she ever had another conscious moment, she probably wouldn’t have remembered what happened. I brought her to my house and locked her in the cell. The ventilation had been shut off and she lived less than four hours.

I reminisced about Becky while Susan talked and continued to drink her Dr. Pepper. It wasn’t long before she showed signs of getting extremely tired. We were in the den and she just stretched out and went to sleep, a satisfied smirk still quite visible on her face.

It’s ironic that in these last hours of her life, she might be as happy as she’s ever been.

I pulled the robe up around her and tightened it before carrying her into the cell and laying her down on the floor. I turned the ventilation on and then began tying Susan’s hands together with a long piece of rope. After securing her hands, I took the rope and tossed it over a beam in the cell’s ceiling. I pulled on the rope, slowly pulling Susan up off the floor.

My intent was to stretch her to where her knees were off the floor, but a surge of adrenalin caused me to pull her all the way off the floor. By the time I tied the rope off, she would be able to touch the floor with the balls of her feet. It looked torturous.

But, with the amount of drug she had ingested, Susan probably wouldn’t wake up to realize she was being tortured until long after I returned that night.

[RebelYell]

Tuesday’s game was torturous for the Tribe.
Cleveland blew a 9-0 lead and lost to the Baltimore Orioles, 10-9. After falling behind by nine runs through five innings, Baltimore scored five times in the sixth inning and five more in the seventh to capture the most unlikely of victories.

The game was delayed nearly 90 minutes by a thunderstorm and power outage.

“Our best chance to get them out in the sixth and seventh would have been to walk them and then try and pick them off,” Bobby Don Southworth told the Plain Dealer. “I think they knew every pitch we were throwing them for a couple of innings there. They were uncanny.”

Casey Blake knocked in six runs and became the last Cleveland regular to reach the 40-RBI mark. Blake had a three-run triple and a three-run home run. Xavier Nady countered with three RBIs in a 3-for-5 performance for the Orioles.

It wasn’t until he was driving home that the realization set in about the power outage. No power? That meant the ventilation might have been shut off. It would not have come back on when power was restored.

Sure enough, there were areas of town that were still without power. Although the porch light was on at his house, he didn’t even bother to rush down the stairs to rescue Susan. She had never awakened. She had been dead for several hours. She was still in the same position: her hands bound high over her head and her body hanging limp.

It had been a long night at the ballpark and now it was going to be an even longer night taking care of Susan's burial.

While things had gone terribly wrong, costing a woman her life, he was prepared for what he had to do. He was going to have to do this anyway, he thought, but now it was just going to have to be done a day sooner.

The burial plot had been picked out long ago. Susan would be buried very close to another former visitor to his cell, the little church girl, Becky. But this time, he would leave some clues. This time, the body wouldn’t be buried long and it would lead investigators right to another body.

… And hopefully, it would lead them right to a prime suspect.

[RebelYell]

Cleveland drops third in a row
to Baltimore, lead shrinks to 3
A crowd of 40,757 fans went home disappointed Thursday as the Cleveland Indians dropped their third consecutive game to the Baltimore Orioles, 5-1, and saw their slim lead in the American League’s Central Division shrink to three games.

Sidney Ponson kept the Indians off their stride to outduel Cleveland’s Kevin Millwood.

Ronnie Belliard was the Tribe’s lone offensive bright spot, delivering a pair of hits in three trips to the plate. Millwood (13-9) yielded seven hits and passed out four bases on balls in more than eight innings of work. He struck out 10.

Manager Bobby Don Southworth was obviously perplexed by his team’s abysmal play in the series and had little to say.
“We played well for six innings over the past three days and everything we did positive in that game [to build a 9-0 lead on Tuesday] was destroyed by two horrible innings,” Southworth said. “That still doesn’t explain why we played so poorly [Wednesday] in front of nearly 41,000 people.”

[RebelYell]

Bobby Don Southworth’s drive home after Wednesday’s loss wasn’t much different until he got within a few hundred yards of his house.

There were police cars a few houses away from his in a couple of different driveways. There was yellow police tape and an ambulance unit.

BD pulled into his own driveway, one that was covered with gravel and arched around a front yard of 12,000 square feet. The house, a barn-shaped two-story home with five bedrooms and a basement, was surrounded by play areas. There were swings and monkey-bar sets for the girls and a batting cage for the boys.

Behind the house was a ravine. It was the best part of the play area. The boys and girls loved to go down toward the water to build and dig and discover. There were salamanders, frogs, turtles – an entire world of animals and insects. It was a world where the kids could be kids and dig out secrets that none of the rest of the world had to know about. It was clean, peaceful and safe.

That afternoon, however, a couple of the neighborhood kids found something else and it wasn’t good.

By the time they were done, police had found two bodies. One had been recently buried there and the other had been there for several weeks. They were buried less than half a mile from the Southworth property, which extended down into the ravine behind their house.

Amanda had the kids in the house and in bed when BD arrived. She stared out the breakfast-room window toward the ravine. Every once in a while, she caught a glimpse of flashlights going up and down the steep hill where her four children had all spent many hours playing.

She had called BD before Wednesday’s game and told him what little she knew. One of the boys in the neighborhood was collecting minnows out of the ravine and spotted something unusual as he marched back up the hill. The first thing he did was run to the Southworth house to get his friend, EJ.

The two boys went back to the spot and found a hand sticking out from the earth. EJ, being a little older and wiser than his friend, knew this was something that the adults needed to know about. Within an hour, there were 20 adults – uniformed officers, plainclothesment, paramedics – traipsing up and down the ravine.

Moms and dads were immediately on the scene, gathering their children and shielding them from the all-too-real-life events.

“Know anything?” BD asked as he walked up behind his wife.
“Just that there are a couple of women who have been out in our backyard for the past month,” said Amanda, visibly upset.

BD hugged Amanda and held her as she started to sob. She had held up well all day, but now the reality was too much. There was a killer in their neighborhood, she thought to herself. Where could they go where their children would be safe?

“Any idea who they are?” BD whispered.
“No … but there’s talk that one of the bodies is that girl who disappeared in Parma,” Amanda said.

BD nodded. He’d read about it. The fact that there were two people buried nearby was a little more than he could handle, though. He thought about wandering over to the area where all the lights were. News crews were now on the scene and there were dozens of cars lined up on the side of the road.

It was 9 a.m. Thursday when a knock came on the front door. It was a police officer. He had general questions to ask the Southworths. Had anybody seen any strangers in the past few days? Had anybody heard anything in the past couple of nights? Anything unusual at all.

There hadn’t been to BD’s knowledge, but he was the least likely to know about anything that went on at home. He wasn’t there much.

The kids were all precocious. Jonathan, most of all, was wise beyond his years. He was also like his mother – a keen observer. He noted that there had been a van parked in the Kaczmarek’s driveway – three doors down – several weeks ago. The Kaczmarek family was often away during the summer. They were away this week, visiting grandparents in Florida.
Johno, as his mother called him, remembered the color of the van. But that was all. It was just another clue that would not lead the police anywhere without more clues to support it.

But Jonathan was on to something.

[RebelYell]

The real reason for the police officer’s visit, Bobby Don Southworth soon learned, was to verify that BD was home on the morning after the bodies were discovered in the ravine. Minutes after the officer left, a couple of detectives were at the door.

The pleasantries took no more than 10 seconds.

“We would like for you to come down to the station and answer some questions,” said Detective Chris Hamm, a 17-year veteran of the force.

BD didn’t argue. There was a sincerity and professionalism about Hamm that, in an odd way, made the Cleveland Indians manager feel secure about his trip to the police station.

“Just one thing,” Bobby Don began.
“We’ll be done in time to get you on the plane to Oakland,” Hamm responded directly. “We need to get some information from you.”

“Oh, OK,” BD said, puzzled by what he had agreed to get himself into.

The ride to the station was more pleasant than he expected.

“Tough series with the Orioles,” Hamm said. “Real tough Tuesday night. I guess you haven’t been involved in too many games like that have you?”
“No,” BD responded. “That one ranks right up there with the biggest chokes I can remember.”

BD stopped cold. “Choked” probably wasn’t a good word to use in this case. No telling how either of these women was killed. They may have even been buried alive.

“So can you guys hold on?” Hamm prattled on, obviously a restless passenger while his sidekick quietly did the driving.

“I think so,” BD said automatically, reeling off a standard answer. “This is a good, young ballclub. I think a lot of people have underestimated us this season and we’ve had a few guys step in and fill some voids. As long as we don’t have anybody get hurt … ”

Bobby Don stopped again in mid-sentence, hoping that no one would catch it.

At the police station, BD was led past two interrogation rooms and to Hamm’s office. This was an official questioning, but Bobby Don Southworth did not feel at all like a suspect. He wasn’t comfortable with the situation – there were still things to do to get ready for a trip to the Left Coast – but he didn’t feel like he had fallen under suspicion.

Hamm offered BD something to drink and on the way around his too-big-for-the-office desk, pointed to a baseball trophy on his bookcase. “Hot Stove, 1976,” Hamm smiled. “I was a utility infielder on the league’s best team … Couldn’t hit a lick.”

BD smiled, still caught in limbo between what he needed to do today and what he was meant to do here.

“I won’t take up much of your time Mr. Southworth,” Hamm started.
“It’s Bobby Don. You can call me Bobby Don,” BD said, still operating on auto pilot.

“Yeah,” Hamm said with a grin. “Bobby Don, this is what we’ve got: Two dead women, 20 years difference in age. I’ve got one girl from right here in my jurisdiction and the other from out of state. No connection between the two other than they were both buried in a ravine near your home.”

BD nodded blankly.

There’s not a lot of physical evidence, Hamm said, beginning to drone on like a ceiling fan in BD’s mind. Both women appeared to have been asphyxiated, but neither was buried alive. There were no apparent struggles, but both of them apparently had their hands tied when they expired.

The word “expired” caused Bobby Don to snap out of his trance somewhat. He nodded again.

“And then there are the bats,” Hamm said.
“The bats?” Bobby Don inquired.

“Yes, there were a couple of bats used as grave-markers,” Hamm said. “They were bats that came directly from your dugout. One of them, we believe, was used in Tuesday night’s game.”

Despite the smidgen of a southern drawl, Bobby Don Southworth was pretty quick upstairs. When he added everything together, he immediately wondered why he wasn’t in one of the interrogation rooms.

He sat silently, giving the detective a nod of understanding.

“We’ve got a theory, Mr. Southworth,” Hamm said.
“Yeah?” BD said, beginning to feel as though he was the victim in a bad practical joke.

[RebelYell]

Bobby Don Southworth started to feel as if he were waiting for a verdict. Hamm had been interrupted by one of his fellow officers and spent the next two minutes just outside the door in a discussion.

When Hamm returned, BD bit his bottom lip.

“We think the killer is trying to frame someone for the crimes. Specifically, I think it’s you he wants to frame,” Hamm continued. “When you put these two murders side by side with the killing in Seattle, you’ll see much of the circumstantial evidence points in your direction. He paused, took a sip out of his coffee cup and went on.
“A couple of months ago, we met with a Seattle detective named Caravella. Know him?”

“Yeah, I met him. He was here,” BD said.

“He thought it would be wise for us to keep an eye on you, Mr. Southworth,” Hamm said. “So we did. And fortunately, our tail not only has us believing that you’ve had no part in these crimes, but it’s possible that tail has become a witness in this investigation. He was doing surveillance work Monday and Tuesday night and reported that you went straight home, went straight to bed and never left your home either evening.”

“That’s good,” BD said, feeling a little less cornered by the news.

There were still some concerns, Hamm said, but he had a strategy and he felt like it was time to put it into play.

“I’m confident that, if this guy was allowed to keep on going, you could become as much a victim in this as anybody,” Hamm said. “I want to put you and your family under a 24-hour watch. I want to have an undercover cop in your house. A maid, maybe. I want this guy to shake this guy up and get him out of his comfort zone. I could scare him away from doing any more damage and, honestly, outside of catching him, that’s a best-case scenario.
“Catching him might require some cooperation.”
BD nodded.
“So all you need is a green light from me?”

“Yes, Mr. Southworth. I’d like to make a play to catch this guy.”

“You’ve got my cooperation and my family’s,” BD said. “You think this guy knows me? You think he’s holding a grudge?”

“I don’t know what makes these guys tick,” Hamm replied. “I flunked out of that course at Quantico.”

“You were FBI?”

“I wanted to be,” Hamm said. “Like I said, I flunked out.”

BD felt a slight smile escape. Here he was, his life turned upside down by some woman-hating killer and, in his corner, was an FBI flunkee who had this theory that probably wouldn’t fly if it had an eagle’s wings.

“Let me know where we need to start,” BD said. “I want to keep the disruption to my family at a minimum, but I don’t want to get in the way of you finding this creep.”

Hamm shook his head. He liked what he heard. Bobby Don Southworth was somebody he would invite over to grill steaks. He liked Bobby Don Southworth and wanted to do everything he could to make things safe for him.

“I want to get started right away,” Hamm said. “I’ve got a female officer we can put in your house starting this afternoon. Is a live-in maid a possibility?”

“I think my wife would like the idea, but she might not like the reason why we’re getting one,” BD said.

“She’s going to be there for your security,” Hamm said. “You can’t beat that for a reason.”

“Good point. But what about the killer. If he knows where I live, don’t you think he’s going to know my house is staked out?”

“Like I said, Mr. Southworth, my objective is to catch this guy. But if I can keep him from ever hurting anybody again, I’d settle for that,” Hamm said.

“You’ll take a lot of heat for not finding him, won’t you?”

“It’s worth the risk,” Hamm said. “I’ll send Officer Duffy over this afternoon for your wife to meet. From the outside, I don’t want things to look too much differently. I’ll have somebody drop her off and pick her up when she needs to come and go. That way there aren’t any unusual-looking vehicles in the driveway.”

“Sounds like you’ve got it all figure out,” BD said. “I’ll leave it in your hands.”

The two men discussed other details and then BD looked at his watch.

“If that’s all there is then, I guess I’ve got a plane to catch,” BD said.

“Hey, yeah, let me give you a ride back home. Maybe spend a few minutes filling your wife in on the details,” Hamm said.

Bobby Don flinched and Hamm caught the connotation of the words he had uttered.

BD smiled and winked. “I’ve been hanging around baseball dugouts way too long,” he said and with that, the two men made their way out of the office and toward the parking lot.

[RebelYell]

What Bobby Don Southworth forgot about in all the happenings around his house was that his trip to Oakland would be followed immediately by a three-game swing through Seattle.

The mood of his team had become more serious following the sweep at the hands of the Orioles. Few of them even knew about the murdered corpses found near their manager’s home. There was the sting of three losses punctuated by one of the biggest collapses in Indians history. That 10-9 defeat was going to leave a mark as big and purple as an overgrown eggplant. It tasted about as bad, too.

The team’s youth was going to come into play here. They were, collectively, a group that was fairly oblivious to what goes on in Cleveland. None of them were Clevelanders, anyway, and only Bobby Don, Eddie Murray and Buddy Bell had spent much time on the North Coast.

Once the guys had found their night spot in the Flats and visited the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, they got into their own routine. Following Wednesday’s game, with a day off in front of them, many of them went partying. They enjoyed themselves in spite of the three-game losing streak.

And who could blame them? They really didn't know what was going on.

Only two people said anything to BD about the “incident” in his neighborhood. Bell, a longtime confidante, mentioned what he had read in the newspaper, an ice-breaker to the news Bell had of his own.

“The Royals are going to fire Peña,” Bell said. “They’re going to ask me to take the job.”

BD felt as if he had been punched in the gut. He held his breath to keep the air from rushing out into a gasp. It came out like a “hm.”

“So what are you going to do?” BD asked after collecting himself. “You want that job?”

“I think I do, BD,” Bell said. “I need to get back in it and prove myself. Kansas City is a no-lose situation. They’re bottom-rung and if I can do anything at all with them, then my stock goes up.”
“Your stock is pretty good here,” BD said, patting Bell on his upper arm. “I’m not sure we can do it without you … From here, all we can do is go downhill. We're in first place now and, if we don’t hang on, we can blame you, I guess.”

Bell smiled at BD.

“I’m serious about this BD. I want to run my own club again.” Bell made his case. It was a good case and he was a good manager. Things hadn’t always gone his way, but it wasn’t for his lack of work ethic, management skills or baseball knowledge.

“So when are they going to make the announcement?” BD asked. "Tony's still the manager, isn't he?"

“Peña won’t even be at the park tonight,” Bell said. “They’ll go with an interim manager today and maybe tomorrow and I’ll work out some details to see if I can’t take over on Sunday or Monday.”

Wow, was about all Bobby Don could say.

“I’m a little floored right now,” BD said, “but I really am behind you all the way, Buddy.”

“I know it, man,” Bell said.

And then he grinned as big as he had in a week and added: “I think a lot of you, Buddy, but I’m gonna make it a high priority to kick your butt every time I get the chance.”

“I know that, too,” Bell said, returning the smile.

[RebelYell]

Indians regain footing, belt Athletics
Bell leaves Cleveland to take Kansas City post

OAKLAND – The dog days of August aren’t making the Cleveland Indians do too much sweating.

Jeremy Sowers was solved for a career-worst 12 hits, but Trevor Young threw 2 2/3 innings of one-hit relief and Travis Hafner capped a three-run ninth with a double as Cleveland marched through Oakland with a 7-4 victory to complete a three-game sweep of the Athletics.

Sunday’s triumph came on the heels of a 7-6 win in 10 innings on Saturday. The Indians opened the three-game set with a 5-3 win on Friday as Cliff Lee posted his 10th win of the year.

Cleveland’s sweep was the best possible response to a three-game losing streak and the loss of Buddy Bell, who was announced as the new manager of the Kansas City Royals on Sunday afternoon.

“It won’t be easy without Buddy,” Cleveland manager Bobby Don Southworth said. “He was a good hand to have around. I learned a lot from him and hopefully some of it will stick with me.”

Southworth did not say what he would do about replacing Bell, the Tribe’s bench coach during Southworth’s inaugural season at the helm, but hinted that he would hire from within the organization.

On the field, the Indians did not miss a single drum beat without Bell. Brandon Phillips’ seventh-inning home run knotted the score, 4-4, and took Sowers off the hook. Ben Broussard went 1-for-3 with a sacrifice fly and three RBIs.

“Oakland was ripping the baseball today,” Southworth said. “I haven’t seen anybody get to Sowers like they did. But we keep coming up big in the bullpen and we keep coming up with timely hitting at the plate.”

Phillips came through in the 10th inning of Saturday’s game, tapping a seeing-eye single between first and second to score Casey Blake with the winning run. Blake doubled to start the Indians’ engine and save them from the embarrassment of blowing a 6-2 lead.

Chad Zerbe, the American League leader with 33 saves, improved to 4-1.

Eric Byrnes jacked a two-run homer to start Oakland’s comeback.

Southworth said that Tuesday’s game – a game the Indians lost after leading 9-0 – never even came into his mind.

“That game is ancient history,” Southworth said. “You can draw a correlation between blowing big leads in both games, but I haven’t felt too comfortable about a four-run lead all year long unless we had [Zerbe] on the mound.”

Zerbe was there Friday night, lowering his miniscule ERA to 1.58 in the Tribe’s 5-3 win. Grady Sizemore had a double, a home run and knocked in three runs to boost the Indians. His two-run homer in the fourth gave Cleveland a 4-0 lead. Oakland scored three times in the eighth – Byrnes knocked in two of them – before Zerbe slammed the door.

The Indians get a day off to travel to the Pacific Northwest where they will finish up the season series with the Seattle Mariners.

[RebelYell]

Dear Bobby Don --

We've got company starting Monday. I met the new "housekeeper" on Saturday and I think you're going to be surprised. It's kind of funny, actually.

The policeman had told me that she would do some minor housekeeping while keeping an eye out on the place. She could do things like the grocery shopping and "be my double."

Uh, I don't think so. She's not anything like me. We can start with race and go from there =)))
You get the idea, I'm sure.

The kids seem to be pretty unaffected by everything going on. None of them want to go out and play even though the weather has been wonderful the past couple of days. EJ had a ballgame Saturday evening, but still made it home to catch your game. He came in and woke me up at 1 a.m. to tell me we had won and all the details on how we'd won.

He was especially proud that you're still wearing that hat that the kids got you. He looks for his initials on it every time they do a close-up shot of you.

I expect another late night or two this week. Think you could talk the other team into playing three day games?

Anyway, we'll see you Friday morning.

Love,
Amanda