Gardy stalked down the sidewalk straight to an obscure door of the decrepit Metrodome. Gardy reached around the wall feeling for a light switch. He found it and switched it up, but nothing happened.

"Figures," he muttered to himself.

Gardy stormed down some stairs into the bowels of the Metrodome. He continued down several corridors before finally trying to open a door, but it was locked.

"Why is this thing locked?" he called through the door. "Open up!"

"You didn't give the secret knock!" a muffled voice said from inside the room.

"I hate all this cloak and dagger b--- s---," Gardy muttered before tapping out "Shave and a Haircut."

The door was unlocked from inside, and it opened slowly with a loud creeeaaaak to reveal a darkened room save for a lonely candle in the center of a table in the middle of the room. Bill Smith and Jim Pohlad were sitting at the table wearing black capes with hoods.

"The plan isn't working!" Gardy said as he stormed in, slammed the door and dropped in a chair at the table.

"You must have patience, my young apprentice," a crusty voice said from a darkened corner of the room followed by a puff of cigar smoke. "This is a long horse race, and we have to hold our thoroughbred back, so he will finally have enough endurance to finish the race and win the prize at the end!"

"T.K., I am not your apprentice anymore, and I'm tired of all the horse racing crap. Your horses have won fewer races than I've won playoff games," Gardy said. "And who is that in the other corner over there?"

"I'm hunger. I'm thirst. Where I bite, I hold till I die, and even after death they must cut out my mouthful from my enemy's body and bury it with me. I can fast a hundred years and not die. I can lie a hundred nights on the ice and not freeze. I can drink a river of blood and not burst," a creepy voice said from the darkened corner.

"OK, who brought the FOX exec here?" Gardy asked.

"I did," Smith said," He has a vested interest in this as well."

"Yes, and it's going splendidly," said Pohlad with glee. "This is going to be a spectacular comeback. This is going to be so much fun!" Pohlad jumped up and down as he talked. "They thought they had seen amazing comebacks before, but they've never seen anything like this."

"OK, OK, settle down," Smith said. "Gardy, I know you're frustrated, but you knew the first part of the plan would be difficult. Your players will be restored to you when the time is right. We need to rest them so they'll be ready for October."

"Could you at least have given some reasonable injuries? Sore arms, oblique strains, bilateral leg weakness? C'mon, even Ron Coomer doesn't buy that one."

"That one's mine," Pohlad said with a grin. "I love that one."

"And why did you give Morneau food poisoning? Or force Pavano to grow a beard? And what did you do to Cuddyer?" Gardy asked.

"We took his magic kit away," Smith said with a wry grin.

"And I didn't know we would get this far back in the standings," Gardy said. "The fans are starting to lose hope. I'm starting to lose hope."

"When the time is right. We must stick to the plan," Smith said.

Well, it better be soon," Gardy said. "Please! Let it be soon!"