Virtual Baseball: CHILDREN OF THE CORN! Yanks Move Into First! Stanton Vanishes! The Master Awakens! Twisters! Falling Houses! Creepy Things in the Cornfield! Field of Screams! Yumpin' Yimminee!

The virtual New York Yankees moved into first place by a game today, with a win in the (truly virtual) cornfield known as All-Star Ballpark Heaven (yes, that's really what they call it).  But it may have been a Pyrrhic victory, considering all the strange things that went on before the afternoon was over.

What the boxscore says is that the Cole Train rumbled to another win, throwing 7 strong innings, striking out 11, and leaving with a 4-1 lead over the White Sox, that relievers Adam Ottavino and Aroldis "Cool Hand" Chapman held on to enough of that for a 4-3 win.  But all that happened in between!

The first indication that this might not be a normal day came when The Master, John Sterling, suddenly awakened from his medically induced coma at the Hebrew Home for the Aged in Riverdale.  His eyes blinking open, Sterling called out, "The children of the corn!  The wicker man!  There's no predicting Twilight Zone style creep-outs in a ballpark cornfield!  Warn Giancarlooooo!"

After that, though, Sterling lapsed back into his coma, and manager Ma Boone laughed off the broadcaster's mystical imprecations, starting Stanton in left field.  Throughout the game, though, outfielders on both teams reported hearing strange whisperings in the cornfield just behind them—all of which Head Umpire Joe West dismissed as "Just the wind!  Just the rustlings of the wind!  What, you want me to go back there and find out?"

Pale Hose outfielders Nicky Delmonico and Nomar Mazara both swore that groups of incredibly swift children with fixed, blue eyes darted out to grab home run balls hit by Stanton and Aaron Judge.  Many players, meanwhile, said that they were unnerved by the gigantic, wicker effigy of a goat that had materialized in dead center of the cornfield the night before.

Then, with two outs in the ninth inning, the winds picking up, and twister cones forming in the near distance, a Yoan Moncada homer cut the Yankees lead to a single run.  The next batter up, Edwin Encarnacion, batting with an actual parrot on his arm for luck, hit a long blast to left that Stanton tracked all the way into the corn—which was in fact as high as an elephant's eye, in keeping with official MLB cornfield regulations.  

Nonetheless, the handful of spectators who had not yet run for cover, saw Stanton reach up and glove the ball, and the ump give the out call, before all hell broke loose.  The gathering tornadoes ripped apart the cornfield and the quaint little ballpark, and sent players diving for cover.  

Almost miraculously, no one was seriously hurt, even though Aaron Judge was recovered, unconscious, from under a nearby Dyersville house that had been flung all the way into the cornfield.  Revived by the team trainer, Judge looked around at his worried teammates and told them, "I had the strangest dream.  But you were there, and you were there, and you were there, Gleyber, and—where's Giancarlo?"

Where indeed?  By the time the search was called off, the Yankees' man of knowledge was still missing.  However, Edwin Encarnacion's parrot had been recovered.

The bird was a goner.