A Light Left on at Progressive Field
Case Filed August 30, 2025 | Cleveland, Ohio
I sat in my office late at night, staring at the suspect wall. The rain and wind furiously beat against the window, mirroring the chaotic thoughts swirling in my head. I was still trying to figure out who the September call-ups for the Guards would be, but hadn’t had any breakthroughs in weeks. Two blank silhouettes were pinned at the center of the board, surrounded by pictures of the usual suspects. I needed one hitter, and one pitcher. The two remaining missing pieces to the puzzle.
I’d been chasing this case for months—ever since I opened the first file back in May with The Curious Case of the Guardians’ Lineup. Since then, some suspects had already cleared their names:
Just as I had deduced at the time, Brayan Rocchio had got himself sent down to Columbus right after I submitted the last case file. He needed the time down there too. But when he got the call back up to the bigs at the start of July, he’d been one of the most consistent bats in the lineup, hitting a cool .271. He was squarely entrenched in the clubhouse now.
A few suspects who weren’t so lucky had already gotten their guilty verdicts. Santana had been a culprit of a major hole in the lineup for weeks and had been released. With good evidence to back up the sentencing, there was little doubt when they sent him away for good.
Cantillo, Rodriguez, and Noel had all had time at the majors for stints…only to get sent back down. That placed them squarely at the center of my current investigation. But now new names had popped up on my radar too. Names like, Valera…Halpin…and Nikhazy.
I thumbed through the case files scattered on my desk, but the words had gone blurry. I’d been staring at it too long. Outside, the rain beat against the windowpane, steady as a ticking clock. The case had gotten a lot more complicated and I knew I needed help if I was going to crack this one.
Snatching the case file from my desk, I flew out the door, grabbing my raincoat and fedora in one motion as I left. As I stepped out into the wet night, I angled the brim of my fedora down over my eyes to protect me from the rain. The old brick roads of Little Italy were slick with a mixture of oil and gasoline, and the streetlight glare shone up off the wet pavement making you have to squint your eyes. It was the kind of night in Cleveland that smudges the edges of the city into a slurry, and nothing seems well defined.
I slid into my ‘90s Alfa Romeo Spider and started off down Murray Hill. The wipers fought hard against the downpour as players’ names kept echoing in my mind: Kent, Stephan, Means…
All of a sudden, the front tire hit a pothole, splashing a wave of water up on the side windows and bringing my attention back to the present moment. I continued on towards Progressive Field through the oil painting that downtown Cleveland had become, the red of the Spider gleaming against the wet streets, a single splash of scarlet amongst the dreary gray. Cleveland looked just like my thoughts…a mess.
In the past when a case went cold like this one, I’d bring in a fresh pair of eyes to see if there was something I’d missed. There was one detective in particular who I knew I could always count on when I was really stuck. He’d cased the Cleveland teams for years. Nobody knew the ballpark’s underground belly better than he did. And when the stakes got high and front office secrets were being whispered in the shadows of dimly lit bullpen tunnels…he was the man for the job:
I pulled the Spider into the near-empty lot behind Progressive Field, rain hammering the hood as the engine cooled. Getting out of the car, I could see that one of the stadium gates hung slightly ajar, creaking in the wind, and far above on the fourth floor, a solitary light pierced through the rain-soaked darkness—Frankie.
Pulling my raincoat lapel up high, I slipped through the open gate and entered the first stairwell I could find. As I climbed towards the fourth floor, my footsteps echoed off the damp walls of the stairwell, my heartbeat pounding in my ears. I should really get more cardio in.
When I got to the fourth floor, I pushed the heavy metal door open and entered the hallway—a tunnel dark as pitch. But just ahead I could make out a faint ray of light glowing from beneath a door, slicing the darkness like a ribbon in two. Outside the door, I could hear the staccato rhythm of a typewriter’s keys firing away from within. And an old nameplate on the door simply read, Frankie de la Noche, P.I.
I knocked three times. “Frankie. It’s Mario. You got a minute?”
The sound of the typewriter stopped abruptly from within, followed by a hurried shuffling of papers. The door swung open, and there stood Frankie de la Noche. He had a modest build with a frame that suggested he knew how to take a punch. I had learned the hard way once that he knew how to throw one too. His dark hair was slicked back, and his mustache neatly trimmed. He had piercing eyes, sharp and calculating, that took in details others usually missed, and a thin cigarette dangled from the corner of his mouth looking like it belonged to his face. He wore a white buttoned-down shirt with a simple navy-blue tie, suspenders and slacks, and an old pair of black dress shoes whose shiny polish had worn off seasons ago.
“Mario,” he said, his smoke-stained voice low and gravelly, “didn’t expect you at this hour. You must be bringing me a case.”
He turned back inside, gesturing for me to take a seat. He sat at his desk, placing his cigarette in a brass ashtray that rested on a scuffed ink-blotter, and got out a bottle of scotch from one of the desk drawers. As he poured two glasses, I took in the details of the dimly lit room.
The first thing I noticed was the pervasive smell of old paper and dried ink that filled the space. The warm glow of the desk lamp in the otherwise dark room revealed several stacks of files strewn over the desktop, a half-finished report still sitting in the typewriter, and a thick notepad with what looked more like hieroglyphics than handwriting scrolled upon it.
“So what have you got, champ?” he asked as he slid one of the glasses of scotch across the desk. I picked it up, savoring the warmth of the elixir, as my bones slowly forgot the cold lurking just on the other side of the windowpane.
“It’s a tough one, Frankie. A case I think you’ll like,” I began. “Been trying to solve the mystery of the Guards lineup for months now. But with September call-ups coming, it just got a whole lot stickier.”
I tossed the case file across the table to Frankie. He picked it up and starting skimming through the notes with a hawk-like intensity. I set the glass down and continued.
“I’ve got two suspects I need to ID. One hitter, one pitcher. I’ve gone through the usual suspects—Noel, Rodriguez, Cantillo… But now we’ve got some new suspects cruising the joint as well—guys like Halpin, Valera, Nikhazy—and after staring at these files for months now…I need an outside opinion…you know how it goes. Tell me what you see in those case notes, Frankie.”
Frankie leaned back in his chair, placing the open folder in his lap and put his feet up on the desk, swirling his scotch in one hand. The desk lamp cast sharp shadows across his face, highlighting the hard lines that had seen decades of action.
“Halpin’s not ready,” he said firmly, glancing down at the folder. “He’s got to prove himself in the minors still. My guess is he finishes out the year there. If he keeps progressing, he slots in as a backup outfielder next year. But right now? No. He’s not your guy.”
He took a swig of scotch and tossed the folder back onto the desktop before continuing. “Noel, though… he keeps showing up in the suspect lineups. Word is he’s been pretty consistent in Columbus. Just look at what time in AAA did for Rocchio. Noel could pull the same stunt if recalled.”
He let the words hang for a beat, then tilted his head toward another folder stacked on the edge of his desk. “But there’s another name who I’d focus your investigation on if I were you: Valera.”
He kicked his feet off the desk, leaning forward as he flicked open the manila folder. Inside was a whole file on George Valera.
”Valera’s finally healthy. Plus he’s a free agent at the end of the year…so management has to decide what they’ve got. He was one of the Guard’s top prospects a while back, but injuries have been an issue. Bottom line, if healthy, he’s got the tools. You want my two cents? I say put him in the lineup, and give him a good interrogation so you know what you’ve got there. Then you can be certain if he’s your suspect or not.”
Frankie picked up his cigarette from the ashtray and leaned back in his chair again. As he pulled on the death-stick he’d tried so many times to quit, a thin trail of smoke rose from the ember and then dissipated before he continued.
“For your hitter? I’d go with Valera…but keep an eye on Noel just in case. Now as for your pitcher… that’s a horse of a different color.”
“Yeah…,” I started. “I can’t make heads from tails with that one. They’ve had Cantillo up earlier who looked good in his last two starts, going at least 5 innings and giving up just one run in each outing. But they’ve got Stephan too, and both Means and Nikhazy are coming back from injury soon…”
Frankie cut in, “Calm down champ. You’ve got your brain going faster than your mouth can keep up. The answer is right in front of you. Been there all along. It’s Cantillo all the way, kid. That’s the name you led with. I know he’s been roughed up in Columbus since going back down, but with Means and Nikhazy still recovering from injuries, Cantillo is the safe bet here. Now whether they try to keep using him as a starter or move him back to the bullpen…that goes above my pay-grade. But if I had to choose a name from your list of suspects…I’d say it’s Cantillo.”
He tilted his head to the other side waiting for my response. I let the words hang for a moment, as I swirled the last of my scotch in the glass. “So that’s it?” I asked. “Valera and Cantillo. It’s that simple?”
Frankie exhaled. “The secret champ? You knew it all along. You just needed to hear me say it to confirm it for yourself. You gotta trust your gut more and your brain less, kid. I would have come up on the short end of a lot of cases if I’d listened to my brain instead of my instincts.”
I nodded, staring at the folders littered across his desk. The storm outside had softened, and I could feel the pieces finally starting to come together.
“Alright,” I said, standing and picking up the case file. But then a thought crossed my mind “And if my gut says we need to move Kwan to center, and put Valera in left and Kayfus or Jones in right?”
Frankie took a long pull on the cigarette, before responding, “If that’s what your gut is telling you, then you need to see a doctor, not a detective.” Swinging his feet up on the desk once more as he leaned back in his chair. “Like I said, above my pay-grade.”
And with that, I headed back out into the Cleveland night, sure that Frankie had cracked the case.