In the baseball league of the future, losing the World Series will get you the death penalty. Nobody cares if anti-MVP Thal Simoleon choked because of an opera-singing pink hippo that only he can see. Angry fans hunt him down in murderous mobs, dying to get a piece of him. And that damn pink hippo taunts him every step of the way, always making things worse. But the sins of the past that set the death hunt in motion might also point the way to salvation. Will the pink hippo's terrible secret be the key that leads Thal back to some kind of glory? Or will he die in extra innings of the bloodiest high-tech basebrawl of all time? Only the hippo knows. This scifi masterpiece will race you out to the edge of reality and blow your mind. Don't miss the uncut version of this story, available here from Pie Press for the first time. Award-winning science fiction author Robert T. Jeschonek has written Star Trek and Doctor Who fiction and futuristic stories for books, magazines, websites, and podcasts around the world. He won the national grand prize in the Strange New Worlds writing contest from Pocket Books. He is one of a handful of authors chosen to write stories in the Star Trek: New Frontier universe. DC Comics, Simon & Schuster, and DAW have published his work. His young adult urban fantasy novel, My Favorite Band Does Not Exist, is now available from Clarion Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and received a starred review from Booklist.